

Reflecting on 3 Years At Facebook - arjunb
http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/reflecting-on-3-years-at-facebook/415679363919

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holman
I despise posts like these. I hate being so negative about it, but it doesn't
_say_ anything. "Facebook has smart employees. Facebook wants you to learn new
things. Facebook has impact." None of it is novel or interesting.

I wish there were more of a culture of insider writing while the events were
going on. When Facebook pushed Questions and then retracted it, I'd love to
see a blog post about "Yeah, we pushed Questions because it rocked but once we
shipped it everything exploded and shit went crazy. Here are the details and
what we learned from it. [...]" That's far more interesting to me, and really
compelling to someone looking to become a Facebook engineer.

Unfortunately, once you grow to a certain level, those things are no longer
kosher. Plain talk is discouraged in an era of Corporate Speak. It's
unfortunate.

But cheers on this guy's three years though.

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avar
At least he didn't mention how great the food was. That's a step up from every
"I love being at Google" post ever.

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paul
I love the food at Facebook. People underestimate how important good food is.

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derwiki
But not to everyone. One of the benefits of working in SoMa is that people who
care about good food can get it, and people who just want to grab a burrito
from the taco truck can do that too.

~~~
pxlpshr
What's wrong with a truck? Would you not consider that an approach to mvp
cooking? In Austin (for which Anthony Bourdain complimented us about), the
trailor-park restaurants expressed magnificent culinary arts. In fact I know
one that started as a trailer until their demand proved significant enough for
a bank loan to expand. Considering the failure rate for restaurants is not too
dissimilar from that of startups, I think it's perfectly acceptable to start
small and grow until the pompous diners accept you... at which point, you've
sold out.

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alanh
Interesting, but hard to consider a "look back" posted on an official Facebook
blog as anything but necessarily whitewashed. (Not knocking.)

~~~
donaldc
Agreed. Things are probably not as ideal as that post makes them sound.

What facebook is essentially saying with this post is: "We're an
engineer/programmer-driven company. If you're a good engineer, you'd like
working here."

The hoped-for effect is probably to continue attracting good engineers. Many
companies that aren't engineer-centric probably wouldn't even know how to say
this in their official blog, much less actually bother to say it. So the fact
they're saying it still carries some weight.

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moultano
The "break things" part of "move fast and break things" is something Google
could learn a bit from. (Speaking as a Googler.)

We're great at adding 9s of reliability, not as great at sacrificing
reliability for progress. You can only move so fast when everything _must
work._

This is the liability I guess of having a huge launch audience for even minor
products.

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dschobel
I can't think of any Google product which is as frivolous as FB. Maybe buzz
and wave (RIP).

People would not take down-time in gmail, analytics, calendar, search, maps,
et al lightly.

~~~
moultano
I work near the people that did goo.gl, and even though it has higher uptime
and lower latency than any other url shortener, there's pressure on them to
make it even faster and more reliable. We definitely have an institutional
mentality that speed and reliability are the best features, and every other
feature is secondary. (Not saying this is a bad thing, it just biases us
towards certain types of products.)

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nostrademons
For most "panda" tasks, isn't that the case? When people use a product to do
something, they evaluate it based on how well it helps them accomplish that.
Speed and reliability are important features there.

This model completely falls down for "lobster" tasks, which may be why Google
sucks at social. But a URL-shortener, along with most of Google's products, is
a panda task. I don't think that the emphasis on speed & reliability is
misplaced there.

~~~
dschobel
Sorry, can you explain what constitutes a "panda" or a "lobster" task?

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nostrademons
[http://ifindkarma.posterous.com/pandas-and-lobsters-why-
goog...](http://ifindkarma.posterous.com/pandas-and-lobsters-why-google-
cannot-build-s)

Was all over Hacker News for a while, with several discussion threads
referring to it afterwards.

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jrockway
Wow, Facebook's site says Facebook is a good place to work?

~~~
elblanco
It's like reading one of those breathless self-promotional google or palantir
blog posts.

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sabj
One question I would have is, "how are things different now?"

A lot could look similar on the face of it, but the company has grown so much
- in users, mission, employees - that that same experience may not apply at
present, even if highly recognizable components remain.

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sosuke
I just passed the 3 year mark not too long ago, I wish I felt like that about
my time where I am. What an experience that must be to come in at that time in
Facebook and come from an amazing place such as Google too.

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hyperbovine
A lot of staring at screens and eating free food.

There's more to life...

Oh wait, you get to wear a sombrero.

~~~
sosuke
A sombrero might have changed my last 3 years completely. What I mean though
is that I wish I could have done more than I have done in the last 3 years, I
don't feel like I've moved forward much.

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amackera
You know what you need to do. You've got to push yourself forward! Try not to
lament about the past, just concentrate on making your future better.

~~~
mitjak
..by purchasing a sombrero at once.

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noahth
awesome post, until he calls the folks he manages "rockstars." can we please
all just move past that ridiculous cliche??

~~~
joelmichael
I like it more than "hacker."

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benjaminlotan
For me this was the first (real/substantial?) blog post i've read on Facebook.
Just throwing that out there.

