Software Engineer

Well passion and dedication and everything else is cool. But what people often miss is that these are incredibly gifted folks. Bret is a stanford graduate, was facebook CTO, co ceo Salesforce and is open ai chairman. That's like being 0.1% of the 0.1%

Product Manager

Software Developer

And now startups demand at least $100 in funding to do the same.

Product Designer

This is  where your compensation aligned with goal

Rarely do you see passion for the thing you're working on, especially in India.

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

Gmail creator Paul Buchheit on how Bret Taylor once rewrote Google Maps in a single weekend.

Gmail creator Paul Buchheit on how Bret Taylor once rewrote Google Maps in a single weekend.- Grapevine

Welcome to Software Engineers's Private Community

Hi everyone,

I recently completed the final round of interviews with Google, and the recruiter mentioned that the feedback was positive and that a team mapping round would be next. However, I'm currently not receiving any responses from her. A few days ago, I tagged Google's candidate support team, and the recruiter replied that the hiring manager for the team I was being considered for didn't find me to be a fit. She said she would look for another team, but it's been two weeks since that update, and I still haven’t heard back. It’s been almost two months since my final interview.

Does this seem normal? Any suggestions on how to proceed?

Thanks!

Google team mapping

Welcome to Product Managers's Private Community

In July 2002, Google did something crazy:

They hired a 22 year old computer science student and made him the product manager for Gmail.

Gmail engineers were shocked.

Gmail was the most important new project at Google. Its target was 10M users.

And this guy, who was just out of college, would be the PM?

But they were overruled, because Google had a bigger problem:

Product managers.

Google couldn’t find good PMs.

Co-founder Larry Page rejected all the super-experienced PMs from Microsoft, McKinsey, etc.

They talked about management and strategy and business. Larry Page hated this.

He wanted Google PMs to be technical.

Otherwise how would they work with the engineers?

That’s when a Google VP, Marissa Mayer, had an idea:

If we want PMs with technical skills and don’t care about their experience, why don’t we hire computer science students from college?

Thus, the Associate Product Manager (APM) program was born.

Brian Rakowski, a 22-year-old CS grad from Stanford, became the first APM. He was put on the Gmail team.

Brian was scared.

How could he work with super experienced, super senior engineers on a super important project if they didn’t respect him?

Marissa gave him the answer: Data

She explained to Brian that a PM didn’t give orders to engineers. His job was to be helpful to engineers.

If he had an idea, first he should do a small test on 1% of users. If it worked, he should show the test data to the engineers to work on it.

Thus, data became the centre of decisions, not seniority or politics.

The rest is history.

Gmail was a huge success.

APM program was a huge success.

The first APM, Brian, was a huge success. He’s currently the Vice President of Product Management at Google!

Reference : https://www.linkedin.com/posts/shreyans512_in-july-2002-google-did-something-crazy-activity-7192496184895115264-nKXF?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Cordially inviting all deserving tech bros

I've seen many posts on products Google killed. What are some superior products/features by Google?

I'll go first: Bard AI for Google Workspace
(PS: don't say Google search :3 )

Google is 25 Y/O

Generalist

Welcome to Gadgets & Apps's Private Community

Google Maps is slowly falling behind

Lifesaver by Google Maps

Senior Consultant

15 years ago, I helped design Google Maps.  I still use it everyday.  Last week, the team dramatically changed the map’s visual design.

@elizlaraki on X

OG Google Maps designer on the recent redesign and what she would change about it. great thread!

Analyst

Insider first hand perspective from recently laid off “original” googler of 18 years.

https://social.clawhammer.net/blog/

Google turning into WITCH over years

Welcome to News Discussion's Private Community

- ChatGPT has reshaped global information-seeking since its 2022 debut, popularizing AI chatbots.
- Despite fears, Google Search remains dominant, with a 91.1% market share in June and rising ad revenue.
- Analysts credit Google's AI integration, particularly Gemini, for boosting search query growth and product performance.
- Google faces antitrust scrutiny, with ongoing cases accusing it of monopolizing the digital search and advertising markets.
- A ruling on the Department of Justice's antitrust case against Google is expected in late 2024.

ChatGPT's Rise Doesn't Dethrone Google Search

Journalist

Hi all, I have around 2 years of experience, and I am getting a chance to interview with Google. I am currently working on frontend, but I want to move to backend and I have been preparing for that, but with phone screen round coming up, if I tell them I have worked on Frontend, then I will definitely be considered for frontend role and if I lie there, then I might fuck up interview if they ask backend questions, any suggestions will be appreciated. What should I be doing in this case, Thank you! 
Please advise!

Interview w Google

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

Lately, I have been thinking very deeply about my college days when the Flipkart story had inspired the entire lot of my batch at IIT-D. We were starry eyed college kids who wanted to do something innovative in India and break away from the "three" most popular moves after IIT:

1. UPSC
2. MBA
3. MS/PhD abroad

I proceeded to then work in various Indian startups and noticed an alarming thing. I began to realise a pattern across all my stints:

The initial founding team does exceptional work innovating, they excel at what Thiel calls "Zero to One", the act of creation. I will concede that although most founders fail to innovate by often copying what worked in the west but the initial founding team usually excels in execution. It allows for initial traction as it breathes a fresh breath in the\ space that they are operating in.

Almost always, when Product Market Fit is "achieved"(whatever that means), the founders begin to deploy insane amounts of funds into growth. 

By definition, Growth is not a bad thing. But, I have been noticing that across all startups I have worked at( all raised funds from the largest global funds) that it comes at the expense of product building. And during this era of hypergrowth, the product starts to stagnate while focus becomes marketing and sales. 

I often felt that this was temporary. That once we reach enough scale, we would start to innovate again. 
But time and time again, the ability to innovate atrophies over time.
Rather than building something that has enduring value by executing faster than anyone, the focus becomes achieving growth at all costs. 

This ultimately leads to two outcomes:
1. The startup cannot sustain this growth and retention begins to look dire. The churn becomes unbearable and the startup goes out of business.

2. The startup gets acquired by someone bigger, allowing founders and investors to believe that they created value where none existed in the first place.

I am completely dejected at this.

The Death of Indian Innovation: Why Indian Start Ups are failing to Innovate?

Growth Manager

What’s a startup idea you had but you never built it

I’ll go first. Mine was a high quality alcohol delivery service. But I later realised how difficult it is to pull it off due to regulation.  
  
 BevMo is a huge company in the US doing the same

Business Development Manager

Google is legendary

Ex Google Employee aggressively complains about company’s dying culture

GMail vs XMail

- Apple announced on Wednesday that Apple Maps is now available on the web via a public beta, accessible directly from your browser.
- The launch puts Apple Maps in direct competition with Google Maps, which has long dominated the web mapping space.
- The web version of Apple Maps is currently available in English and works on Safari and Chrome on Mac and iPad, as well as Chrome and Edge on Windows PCs.
- Apple plans to add support for more languages, browsers, and platforms, along with additional features like the 360-degree panoramic 'Look Around' view.
- Developers can link to Apple Maps on the web, allowing users to get driving directions and detailed place information, expanding Apple Maps' reach 12 years after its initial iPhone launch. 

 Source: Techcrunch

Apple Maps launches on the web to challenge Google Maps

Google wanted Android adoption back in the day, so they did this with Twitter, Foursquare and other apps. Making a lot of the early social apps look very similar. 

What a piece of history.

TIL: Google built the first beta version of Twitter app

Product Marketing Manager

Atleast not in the form it is now. Found a rare good post on LinkedIn via Twitter which lists the reason why i think so. Also, I was reading psychology of money and one of the chapters discussed how GE used to be the most valued company in 2000s and how within 20 years, everything went to manhole.

Google is seriously going through a leadership crisis. I hate Pichai from the gut. We Indians like him coz he's brown munda, but I have never seen such narrow minded CEO since Balmer.

Hot Take: Google will not exist in next 30 years

Many other xooglers raised these leadership issues earlier. 
 Meanwhile, tier2/3 kids are burning midnight oil to land up in Google to start YT channel

Now G-Suite users will be able to share a similar page to schedule calls, which was Calendly’s main use case. 

It’s so sad to see that one small feature addition from a big organization can just kill a small company in a short amount of time.

Gmail creator Paul Buchheit on how Bret Taylor once rewrote Google Maps in a single weekend.

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