An hour before group dinner in Cairo hotel.
Dan: [clicking away at Sidekick hiptop]
Me: Are you reading work emails again?
Dan: [glances at me and then back down] [smiling] Maybe.
Me: Why are you working from Egypt, during your vacation? None of the rest of us are.
Dan: [wordlessly clicking]
Me: [after some silence] Do you think Google does this to people? Where we work so much?
Dan: No. We do it to ourselves, at Google.
Me: Surely it's not normal to work like this.
Dan: It's also not normal to do amazing things.
Doing amazing things is normal
ReplyDeleteIt's a fine line between loving what you do (doing what you love), and being a workaholic. Too fine, perhaps.
ReplyDeleteThe technical advances at google aren't really amazing. Lots of clever things, but definitely not amazing. I think that googlers are a little too high on themselves. They did some neat stuff with search a while ago, they keep coming up with clean interfaces to some decent products.
ReplyDeleteMy current view is that if people aren't burning out and/or destroying their non-work lives, then things are probably ok. How's turnover? If it's pathological, then maybe things aren't ok.
ReplyDeleteIt would amazing if you started a Niniane channel on Youtube to go along with these entertaining transcripts. It would be pretty cool and complete.
ReplyDeleteGoogle is about the brand, nothing more. There really isn't anything amazing that they do but as long as they have the buzz going, the stock will stay high and the ego's will soar.
ReplyDeleteWorking long hours is a sympton of working in Silicon Valley, not working at Google.
ReplyDeleteYou talk as if you're developing a cure for cancer.
Jeez, googlers are so full of themselves. Time for a reality check: what you're doing isn't that amazing. Such egos will get deflated when the downturn comes. Many of us in Silicon Valley had the same lofty view of ourselves before the bubble burst.
ReplyDeleteI think he was being sarcastic about doing amazing things...
ReplyDeleteAt least I hope.
Just another plebe trying to make a mark.
Happy in the small world he created around himself.
And that is a good thing.
:-)
re: most recent Anonymous.
ReplyDeleteActually, Dan can legitimately say that. He has done amazing things.