typingduck

Next time I'm building out observability again I will definitely do that :)

A great article (unfortunately I think medium screwed it up with the title).

I love working with people who "give a sh*t" ^TM. Sadly, I observed they almost always seem to end up disillusioned and leave large companies. Over the long term these companies seem to be dominated by non-people (those that just go with the flow never having much opinion either way). It could be argued that people who are idealistic are too difficult to work with/ are over demanding of those around them. But I think it's a question of short-term-ism over long-term-ism. Ironic given what's written in this article that now would be the perfect time to have a properly-differentiated trust based competitor product to Facebook. Perhaps Google would have been better served by taking it's time to get g+ right rather than a growth-hacked bet-the-company moment.

I remember the early days of Google when everyone looked on with awe/reverence as they announced "don't be evil" and how they were going to be different. Ultimately the stock market system means role of executives is judged by quarterly earnings and it would be hard for any individual to stand up to that over the long-term. But just as Google's culture was a reaction to perceived failures at other companies I hope some great people launch a company that takes the learnings from Google into an even better culture.

I will watch out for liz ends up next and judge the company positively based on that.

Looked into it in the past. The work required would not be trivial so for funding would be required. Funding can be difficult - especially in Europe - to get for taking on a pure technical project (would have to add blockchain right now). It's more like you have to find an initial smaller business problem to tackle first and tackle the bigger problem indirectly.

It comes across that you're not a PG fan :) but I think that clouds your response here a little.

CERN (thankfully) is not a company, let alone a big company. I don't think it's fair to counter argue on this point. I've worked across research, big company and startups.

I would argue that the way researchers work is a lot more akin to the 'natural' way of working (free from such artificial constraints as quarterly shareholder value) that this article is trying to get at.

I have worked for the government (research, not much unlike cern) and I concur that it's completely different than working for what I believe anyone would refer to as 'a big company'. I'm pretty sure it doesn't even qualify to be referred to as a 'company'.

I am a very pro-EU member of the Union and I definitely think the EU is on a roll with regulation lately (e.g. timely arrival of GDPR, reduction is subsidies for less democratic members).

However I am one of those pro people who think it's good to be critical. The nature of democracy in the EU is a good question that needs to be resolved.

Only Ireland seems to have been consistent about asking the actual people for their thoughts of big changes being made in the EU.

It's even questionable if Junker was 'elected' indirectly by the elected governments and it's almost certain he would never have been directly elected by the people of the EU given what would have emerged about tax 'avoidance' in Luxembourg.

Without wanting to give support to the English tabloid media, I think those questioning the democratic nature of the EU have a valid argument and the downvoting of those doing so above surprises me.

:)

As a EU citizen after watching all of Zuckerberg talking to Congress I was really amazed. I do not think any country in Europe would have such open discussions. Most articles I've seen have unfortunately picked soundbites to make a point, or claimed the Representatives were not tech-savvy. But for me it was really great democracy in action.

if European legislation is more supportive for small agile companies to evolve

GDPR is great, but it seems to me many of the Congresswomen/men were questioning how would legislation impact the ability of US tech companies to remain agile. I do not think we have such pro-business forces in the EU. That's why we are so far behind US and China in tech. I fear more and more legislation will make us less likely to have small agile companies.

I agree with both of you and tensor :)

Having dedicated people understanding what users want, what competitors are doing and what are the future directions of the market is probably necessary and worth dedicating serious time to.

It is just how people organize teams right now that seems a little broken; a Product Manager and 'their' team. This leads to the Engineers who like to innovate becoming bored and finding smart ways to get out of the 'typingpool'. This innovative talent is really necessary to scale product teams though, e.g. spotting common patterns across code bases. With that loss in innovation companies suddenly find a comparable feature that took 2 weeks taking 2 months.

Also as technology evolves new features previously impossible become possible. A Product Manager probably will not see this.

Perhaps there is a more 'ownership' heavy way of organizing Engineers. Something a bit more democratic like having a pool of ideas coming from Product Designers and Engineers. Self forming teams can come together to deliver whatever motivates them.

Oh please! Can someone go ask Jeff Dean to create a CMS in some semi-serious way and video the result.

I always ask this. Doesn't even require an honest answer, the length of pause is sufficient.

(although now it's been on HN interviewers will probably be better prepared)

Great article. Very well articulated.

If you haven't seen it already, there's a BBC series called "The Trap" which raises interesting questions too around game theory reflecting human behaviour versus game theory driving human behaviour through modern capitalism.