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Stevey's Google Platforms Rant

I was at Amazon for about six and a half years, and now I've been at Google for that long. One thing that struck me immediately about the two companies -- an impression that has been reinforced almost daily -- is that Amazon does everything wrong, and Google does everything right. Sure, it's a sweeping generalization, but a surprisingly accurate one. It's pretty crazy. There are probably a hundred or even two hundred different ways you can compare the two companies, and Google is superior in all but three of them, if I recall correctly. I actually did a spreadsheet at one point but Legal wouldn't let me show it to anyone, even though recruiting loved it.

I mean, just to give you a very brief taste: Amazon's recruiting process is fundamentally flawed by having teams hire for themselves, so their hiring bar is incredibly inconsistent across teams, despite various efforts they've made to level it out. And their operations are a mess; they don't real

@hyperupcall
hyperupcall / settings.jsonc
Last active March 31, 2024 22:52
VSCode config to disable popular extensions' annoyances (telemetry, notifications, welcome pages, etc.)
// I'm tired of extensions that automatically:
// - show welcome pages / walkthroughs
// - show release notes
// - send telemetry
// - recommend things
//
// This disables all of that stuff.
// If you have more config, leave a comment so I can add it!!
{
@davetron5000
davetron5000 / Functional.java
Created January 20, 2013 15:41
More functional version of the take 25 squares integers thing
import java.util.*;
public class Functional {
public static void main(String args[]) {
System.out.println(squaresOf(integers()).take(25).toList());
}
private static List<Integer> take(int numToTake, RichIterable<Integer> seq) {
List<Integer> results = new ArrayList<Integer>();
Iterator<Integer> iterator = seq.iterator();
@erikh
erikh / hack.sh
Created March 31, 2012 07:02 — forked from DAddYE/hack.sh
OSX For Hackers
#!/usr/bin/env sh
##
# This is script with usefull tips taken from:
# https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/master/.osx
#
# install it:
# curl -sL https://raw.github.com/gist/2108403/hack.sh | sh
#
@chitchcock
chitchcock / 20111011_SteveYeggeGooglePlatformRant.md
Created October 12, 2011 15:53
Stevey's Google Platforms Rant

Stevey's Google Platforms Rant

I was at Amazon for about six and a half years, and now I've been at Google for that long. One thing that struck me immediately about the two companies -- an impression that has been reinforced almost daily -- is that Amazon does everything wrong, and Google does everything right. Sure, it's a sweeping generalization, but a surprisingly accurate one. It's pretty crazy. There are probably a hundred or even two hundred different ways you can compare the two companies, and Google is superior in all but three of them, if I recall correctly. I actually did a spreadsheet at one point but Legal wouldn't let me show it to anyone, even though recruiting loved it.

I mean, just to give you a very brief taste: Amazon's recruiting process is fundamentally flawed by having teams hire for themselves, so their hiring bar is incredibly inconsistent across teams, despite various efforts they've made to level it out. And their operations are a mess; they don't real