DominicHamon.com
Life is like a grapefruit
s/GOOG/TWTR/
A little over three years ago1, I left LucasArts to join Google. I have now left Google to join Twitter.
I have an amazing opportunity to join the Mesos team at a point in their development that is ideal: The technology is built, the company has invested heavily in it, but there’s still a huge amount to do and a chance to have a hand in building something great.
When I joined Google, I thought I’d never leave; there are so many projects at the company that I thought if I was ever bored, or just felt the itch, I’d be able to find a new one. This is completely true, but is also part of the reason that I’m leaving.
Google is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to Google2. When I joined, Google could be described as an online lifestyle company: Search, Mail, Docs, Android, and Chrome formed the backbone of an internally consistent suite of products. The advent of Google+ fit that model and added the necessary feature of consistent identity. I wouldn’t say Google’s been entirely successful in rolling it out3, but the end goal is reasonable.
The addition of Google[x], robotics companies, and more recently home automation projects, have left Google’s focus unclear. To be more concrete, in any production environment it is necessary to have a shared vision of what everyone is ultimately working on. If that doesn’t exist, it is difficult to understand the context behind senior management decisions, or even to trust your peers are working towards the same goals that you are. I somehow lost sight of that shared vision at Google. Having said all that, there are many brilliant people working on astounding projects at Google, and I’m proud to have been a small part of it for a little while.
What Twitter offers is a clarity of purpose that keeps every line of code focused on a well-defined product. Features may be added, but at its core Twitter is not going to significantly change. Add to that a widely used open-source project that is a key part of Twitter’s infrastructure, challenges of scale that no-one has had to work at before, and you have quite the compelling opportunity.
Replacing a two hour bus-ride with a forty minute walk doesn’t hurt either. There’s also less chance of me being barricaded into my home by protesters.
- 1186 days, to be precise ↩︎
- With apologies to Douglas Adams ↩︎
- the conflation of identity with real identity is specifically problematic ↩︎
Posted on 2014/02/05 in personal | | Leave a comment
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Comment
Name *
Email *
Website
Recent Posts
- London Calling
- The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
- The only winning move is not to play
- s/GOOG/TWTR/
- URL shortener in go
- All the small things
- gomud
- Hole hearted
- Typed data for performance boost
Archives
- April 2018
- May 2015
- August 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- November 2013
- September 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- September 2012
- May 2012
- March 2012
- January 2012
- September 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- July 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
Search
Search
Copyright © Dominic Hamon 2021. WordPress theme by Ryan Hellyer.