Work Observations
Thursday, July 17, 2003
From a Wall Street Journal article:
"Though he declined to comment directly about the company's competition with Google, Yahoo Chief Executive Terry Semel said, "Simply put, search is an important aspect of what we do."
I remembering Tom commenting during an ETL lecture series that Yahoo! is really finding its place in media, as opposed to technology. There was a reference to Mike Moritz's history in publishing as making sense given his role at Yahoo! (on board). And I've been hearing over and over about how a lot of companies that have been squashed by M$ did so because they lost their focus and essentially did something stupid, arrogant, and/or suicidal in the face of the M$ threat. I wonder if for yahoo, this is the same kind of threat, except that google is the threat.
Another random note, Moritz left the board of Yahoo! March 2003. He's an investor in and on the board of Google, I think. Eenteresting.
The founders decided to have an intern lunch with the founders and it happened yesterday. WC told me it was actually the first one they'd ever done. I wonder if it was in part triggered by my dinner with LP and the fact that abotu 6-7 people ended up joining the over-dinner conversation. This is that thing about MFP interns sometimes creating opportunities for other interns, I suppose?
The lunch was fun -- I like LP and I think he likes me, especially after my inappropriate and accidental naked professor slip-up. :) But I don't think they were being straight with us. I asked about hiring practices at Google and how they developed their distinct style of requesting recommendations, transcripts, etc. SB actually pretended to be clueless that it was policy but then affirmed that he didn't think it was a bad idea. WC said that SB must have been obfuscating as, according to him, it was their policy. I wonder why they weren't straight about it.
Hiring here:
Interview scores and gpas have no correllation with the hire's evaluations a year later. They actually tested this sort of stuff, data addicts that they are. The only factor that predicts success is the "superstar referral" (as distinct from the "social referral"). And realizing this, the company is willing to pay $2000 a head for a referral. Dayamn. Homestead used to pay $1000 a head. I just read somewhere that MS pays $50 of credit in the company store. *bleah*
Wednesday, July 09, 2003
I had the much vaunted in my own head dinner that Jen set up for me with LP. It started off awkwardly and I was armed with some questions I had:
- This company found WICS almost immediately after its inception. In a non-defensive sense, where is the drive? I liked the frankness of LP's answer. He was talking about studies that find that having a good gender balance in work enviornments (Antarctic base station for one) just make life better for everyone, and he's seen it in his own life. He's not happy with where the company is now, though the company is doing better than lots of other companies.
I actually didn't need to interview because, though awkward, he was good to talk to. At dinner, a bunch of other folks sat with us, which loosened up the conversation a lot more. I don't feel like my LP bonding was actually diluted at all, because we interacted a lot more normally with the pressure off.
Relevant to MFP things we discussed:
- Where is this company going? The mission is deliberately vague. Smart computers. The possibilities are infinite. I'm sure they have concrete strategies, but they probably need to protect them. A big strategic question: what about M$?
- We don't display tobacco ads or alcohol ads (except for wine ads) on principal. Interesting debate about the ethics of that. LP's rationale is that we display everything in our results, uncensored, but we choose not to take money from these industries. They do advertise porn thoguh, since it's a huge market, people are looking for it, and perhaps by giving it some legitimacy, they may make it a healthier industry, a la arguments for legalizing prostitution in Netherlands.
- Big project groups are bad.
- Hiring people for short term needs makes no sense, according to LP, because it won't help the short term anyways since people don't really start contributing for like 6 months. This leads him to restrict hiring which makes some people "kick and scream and not like him." He's actually putting a hiring cap on non-tech hires, bounding non-tech hires by the rate of tech hires so he can ensure that hiring resources are going in a long term beneficial direction.
- A big problem here is the conflict between the revenue source and the main vision. Their best effort is to put half the resources on each side.
Other fun stuff...was joking about CS dept profs body building habits and other peculiar habits. Described Van Glabeek's nudist tendencies and how I was browsing his website looking at photos and he was definitely naked but really small...I meant that the photo was thumbnail, but Wesley, Vijay, and LP broke into peals of laughter. I joked that with these things falling out of my mouth, I'll never make it to management. LP said I'd probably be *more* likely to. ;)
Monday, July 07, 2003
