Comment by pinewurst

1 year ago

I’m hoping this is sarcasm deserving my heart-felt belly laugh. FANG (or whatever the backcronym is these days) “selective hiring” is just puzzle driven mediocrity with a ridiculous amount of elect self-praise at their own good fortune. And “performance metrics”, give me a break - product innovation is in the toilet and product quality even further down the drain. Unless you’re talking about advanced PR and market manipulation techniques to capture and retain ad revenue…definitely genius there.

I agree with the vibes of your comment, but I have to reply to this:

> Unless you’re talking about advanced PR and market manipulation techniques to capture and retain ad revenue

Those very much _are_ the goals at those enterprises.

  • Indeed they are, but my point is that _these_ goals are hardly admirable. At the same time, the claimed innovations aren’t real, at least in the sense that anything in any issue of the Bell Labs Technical Journal was. “Apps”, etc? This is like giving the Medellín cartel credit for their hippo culture while ignoring the basis of their real success.