STEM bottom of the list of Google employee qualities - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 06:49:31 am
content: Apparently, if this hack is to be believed, we should all have shunned STEM and done one of the many Grievance Studies courses instead.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/12/20/the-surprising-thing-google-learned-about-its-employees-and-what-it-means-for-todays-students/?utm_term=.16337ef85d7aOriginal study:https://read.amazon.co.uk/kp/embed?preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_BbPoAb4DDTFYQ&asin=B01N0WU65A&tag=thewaspos09-20

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 07:00:33 am
content: What a load of crap.Yes, granted I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've used Pythagoras's theorem since high school. But where does Google management think "critical thinking and problem solving" skills develop from? STEM and it starts from a young age.

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 07:14:07 am
content: At school there was a student, let's call him Tim.Tim was a smart guy. He had written a few games from scratch in C++ during college, and was very knowledgeable in everything that went into computer programs and the toolchain, the windows and linux API and webhosting. Very valuable guy you'd say, right? WRONG!As Tim would literally yell when you didn't know something. He'd yell "WRONG!". That is, aside from loud, completely unprofessional and not constructive.He'd also was often dressed wrong, with unobstructed view to his man-cleavage and often dirty clothing.Smart guy, ticked all STEM boxes, but not very hireable due to lack of all other capabilities. I guess Tim is the type of guy that becomes a black hat hacker.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 07:41:39 am
content: Tim clearly suffers from Asperger syndrome or some other kind of developmental/social disorder. Doesn't mean STEM made him that way ;-)

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 08:04:02 am
content: I agree that insular working often attracts people to STEM, I’d also suggest it’s not a trait that a typical Grievance Studies course is going to fix. I’d also say that being able to work on your own and not be a spoon feeder is a key skill too.In my experience, the few folk I’ve dealt with with these soft degrees tend to be on the spoon feeder end of the spectrum, and lack analytical and problem solving skills: they’ve been too used to wishy washy critical theory as opposed to hard critical thinking.Being able to think analytically and solve problems by its very nature is frequently an insular activity requiring individual lone concentration. While cooperation, corroboration and sharing information is also a key skill, sitting around in focus groups all day without having already spent time analysing a given problem is a waste of time.The elitism aspect that you cite happens in any line of work, being a sociopathic second-rate human being, lacking self-awareness, is regrettably a human trait. On the other side of the coin, there is some correlation between being a sociopath and being “successful” in business, because sociopaths lack empathy and are less risk averse.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 08:19:25 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on December 29, 2017, 07:00:33 amDo you have data other than your personal feelings on the matter to substatiate your position? I don't think "What a load of crap" quite does it when one of the biggest and most succesful tech companies says something like this based on its own data, especially considering it's the company known for in depth data analysis and teasing information from large datasets.

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 08:48:21 am
content: I've a lot of respect for John Taylor Gatto and his research into the failures of education.Thing is, the school system was originally designed to brainwash people into obeying orders, and to fight, both literally and figuratively. It was not designed to instil creativity, quite the reverse in fact. It was also not designed to encourage collaboration, in fact collaboration is strongly discouraged. As a student you are in a fight, tooth and nail, against the rest of your class for the best exam result. Anyone caught helping someone else is cheating, and will be punished, along with the person they helped.-Is it any wonder that this mentality continues into the workplace? Employees don't behave like that because they want to. They behave like that because they have been trained to.

author: DimitriP
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 08:50:12 am
content: ...another study...another dollar....

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 08:52:09 am
content: Quote from: IanMacdonald on December 29, 2017, 08:48:21 amI see this being very different in different countries. Not all school systems have students compete in a ranking.

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 08:56:44 am
content: The Washington Post article ties itself up in knots a bit. It seems that the writer confuses philosophy and psychology in a way that actually somewhat detracts her argument. Philosophy is about rational thinking, whereas psychology is about the feels, man.I am reminded of thishttps://youtu.be/BKorP55Aqvg

author: DimitriP
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 09:24:00 am
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on December 29, 2017, 08:19:25 amWhich part of the fact that you can't start a tech company without tech people needs substantiation?Or the fact that once a company "get's going" it takes more than one discipline to run it ?That's amazing stuff!

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 09:31:42 am
content: Quote from: DimitriP on December 29, 2017, 09:24:00 amThat's not quite what Halcyon said, nor what Google concluded, is it? Let's not let our emotions get in the way.

author: ajb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 05:51:59 pm
content: Say you have an idea for a widget. So you start up a widget company. So you hire the best engineers to design the hardware and write the software and create and manage the production process and you build millions of widgets and make billions of dollars and everyone's happy, right?Wrong.The moment you have more than two people involved in an endeavor you have a relationship. Relationships require communication, and communicating effectively is a skill. You're not going to sell any widgets unless you build widgets that people want. That means understanding people's needs, and it means communicating to them how much they'll like your widget. Once you know what people need and want, you need to communicate to your top level engineers what the widget needs to do. Your engineers need to communicate with each other across disciplines how to make a widget that does those things. You and your engineers are all humans, so there are bound to be misunderstandings along the way, and you need to know how to identify and resolve those. The mechanical department might say "The best design is octagonal!", while the electronics department says "No, round!", and the software department says "Square!". Now you need to negotiate and figure out how you establish tradeoffs across disciplines to identify the best overall design. You might say that there's clearly a single objectively best answer, but no, on a team of four there will be at least four objectively right answers because most likely each team member has a slightly different idea of "best". Because, again, your engineers are human, you also need to do all of that while making sure that everyone feels equal parts of the team, because one poorly done negotiation can poison relationships that will fester and blow up into big problems later on.The whole process goes on and on like this. Yes, you need technical skills, but those technical skills are wrapped up in technical *people*, and any sort of people present a whole slew of problems and challenges that are not at all technical! Eventually, when you go to sell your widgets, you're not even dealing with *technical* people any more--just plain people!

author: hendorog
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 06:18:22 pm
content: Quote from: ajb on December 29, 2017, 05:51:59 pmThe epiphany here is that you don't need an electronics department, a mechanical department, a software department.You need a product department. All the people working there are involved in some way in that product. Everyone involved in that product is in the same team, with different skills, and they all work together to produce the product.

author: ajb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 06:55:03 pm
content: Quote from: hendorog on December 29, 2017, 06:18:22 pmThat's a distinction without a real difference in this context--well, maybe a difference in scale: on smaller projects it's easier to say that there's only one team and mean it. Even so, you could say that the company is the product team and there are different subteams within that need to collaborate more closely on their respective areas of expertise. Regardless of the distinction, it doesn't change the core problem of having to get a group of people with different skills, personalities, and perspectives to work together efficiently. Actually, figuring out the organizational structure that best suits the project is itself an important soft skill. Whether a single uber-team with a flat structure performs better than a hierarchical set of teams under separate managers will depend on the nature of the project and the people involved! Some people can work well in a heterogeneous group if they can handle the communication across disciplines, others work better when they can focus on their specific area with a manager providing an information filter and single point of contact with the rest of the organization.

author: hendorog
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 07:37:16 pm
content: Quote from: ajb on December 29, 2017, 06:55:03 pmI think this is exactly what Google have done - put people with different skills into teams and observed what comes out the back end. If they hadn't then they would have a hard time comparing the output of the different teams as they have done here.I also think that arranging a company in the traditional way - Silo's of people all with the same skills - is incredibly unproductive. Particularly in a fast moving market. Classic Dilbert stuff.

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 08:41:29 pm
content: Quote from: hendorog on December 29, 2017, 07:37:16 pmIt is. At work I'm a software guy. Yet, I go onsite, or onboard, to install equipment sometimes. I see where the software I work on is being applied, what I'm missing and I now know that requiring a laptop to configure a product is PITA. Great on your desk, not at all in the engine room. Most competitors seem to disagree.Also the workshop and regular service guys come in or call with any problem they have. We have one sales guy, and when he got in was given a desk with engineering/production (thats one room), he still sits there one day a week. We've since greatly improved graphics in manuals, and made more accurate brochures and website segments.Mixing people is a key feature. Otherwise you're in a bubble.

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 09:35:19 pm
content: Quote from: ajb on December 29, 2017, 05:51:59 pmYes, that's the main point in "Peopleware" by DeMarco and Lister.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 10:10:31 pm
content: You hire Tim, build him a lab, occasionally slide pizza through a slot and see what he comes up with. You do not surround him with slow thinkers, you just let him roam until he tumbles on something that might be useful. You write off the entire cost as 'research'.Yes, Tim will bounce off of things. In some ways he will be like a bb in a bowling alley. That's no problem, just keep sliding pizza through the slot.No matter what happens, don't let Tim interact with others.Of the thousands of employees at Google, how many do you think really know anything about magic? The vast majority are not high thinkers, they are drones. Fix this little thing, fix that little thing. And leave the magicians alone! And get more pizza!

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 10:20:46 pm
content: Google is an advertising company, engaging in technology where that is a means to the end of selling advertising. It doesn't surprise me to find that skills likely to help with the sale of advertising are more highly prized than STEM skills.

author: DimitriP
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 10:49:23 pm
content: ...and now for something completely different (not really, I just like saying that )http://time.com/4026473/ridiculous-science-studies/

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 11:01:03 pm
content: Sometimes you have to step back and think. Google hired only the best tech people. Then they looked within that group and found that skills other than tech were what made a difference in that population. As we used to say in college - "No shit Sherlock".Kind of like going to the NBA and discovering that the very best contributors had skills in addition to being tall and coordinated. Gee, virtually everyone in the NBA is tall and coordinated.I would have concluded from the study that STEM skills were necessary, but not sufficient for top success. Those using the study to denigrate STEM skills do so a grave peril, while those who say that STEM skills are the be all and end all of education will end up working for those who figure out what this really means.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2017, 11:18:22 pm
content: I like one of the comments:Quote from: conditionalprobabilityI agree that soft skills are important, perhaps more so than technical ability, but wouldn't say they're found in humanities more than STEM students.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 31, 2017, 03:12:39 pm
content: I haven't read the study yet, only the article. From that and from my own experience, there may be a problem in the definition of what a "top performer employee" is. As others have mentioned, in the beginning a successful tech company requires quite a number of good technologists (STEM) to create and perfect the highly foundation work to start it and to keep it going - the top employees will certainly be among these folks doing foundational work. Over time, the company diversifies and requires other areas of expertise, while the foundational work is forgotten or simply relegated to maintenance - part of the briliant technologists want to be left alone while improving and optimizing the foundation of the company, which consequently takes them off the "top performer" category.On the other hand, after the James Damore scandal I am quite suspicious of a study performed by Google to be free of any extreme leftist bias - to validate hiring the newly grads with arts/humanities/social majors to either increase the numbers aligned with their line of thought or to narrow the gender gap.In time: despite having a technical background and working on a technical capacity, I am a firm believer that communication and interpersonal skills are extremely valuable for anyone in the workplace.

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 31, 2017, 06:28:09 pm
content: Quote from: rsjsouza on December 31, 2017, 03:12:39 pmThat was a suspicion I had too. While I’m sure Google is still hardly going to be struggling to find job applicants, it’d be interesting to see if it has had any effect on its popularity in recruitment application numbers.If Google are so invested into diversity, I wonder what their employee age distribution is like? Pretty poor I’d imagine, and odd because older people tend to have more of those softer soft skills they’re so interested in accruing.

author: vodka
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 31, 2017, 07:52:27 pm
content: I believe that the humanities on the STEMs have other purpose than not is improving the communication skills among the engineers.My bad thoughts is aiming that the reason is creating a job reserve for the sons of the rich people . People that can't put on a bank, neither lawyer's buffet neither politics because they haven't got knowlegde.Therefore ,with the excuse the new digital revolution, the great corporations are creating new jobs for the rich sons and not for midclass sons(sorry, poors).

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 31, 2017, 08:03:32 pm
content: Quote from: vodka on December 31, 2017, 07:52:27 pmI don't see how some class inferiority complex is any part of this.

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 31, 2017, 08:21:30 pm
content: Quote from: ajb on December 29, 2017, 06:55:03 pmIt's a very real difference in management science. Most large corporations have their org chart divided according to product lines (M-form), while a few are divided according to areas of expertise (U-form).Apple is an outlier in being organized the latter way.

author: vodka
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 31, 2017, 08:31:50 pm
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on December 31, 2017, 08:03:32 pmSimplifying, today such as is organized the job system ,the job places are limited. The job places aren't going to share, else they will take you off and they will give to their friends or their sons.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 31, 2017, 09:12:16 pm
content: Quote from: vodka on December 31, 2017, 08:31:50 pmYes, you said that before, but thinking from an inferiority complex isn't going to help anything. It's basically the classic "they tooker jebs!"And sure, social networks count. However, these are much less "old boys networks" than they used to be and can include you if you play your cards right. You just shouldn't be as naive to think that being qualified is enough.

author: janoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 31, 2017, 09:21:57 pm
content: The article (and neither the study) is not about denigrating STEM. The key part is this:QuoteIn other words it is saying that in order to be a valuable employee, being a "techie" is not enough and that you needalsothe softer skills - know how to deal with people, how to communicate, etc. And that the extreme focus on STEM at the expense of the humanities is going to be detrimental - because if the humanities departments are cut/reduced/downsized/marginalized/you-name-it, where are the future engineers going to learn this?It is the same story as before when everyone wanted to be a lawyer, surgeon or a history major, with nobody going into the hard, math-based fields because they were seen as too "nerdy", difficult and uninteresting. Now the virtual pendulum is swinging the other way and we are risking committing the same mistake - only in the opposite direction.Most engineering schools, in fact, demand that the students take up some courses in humanities today - for exactly this reason. Whether it is enough or whether the courses offered are meaningful can be debated, but this isn't anything new. In short - a right balance is required, extremes are harmful.And to folks that are trying to paint this as some sort of appeasement to diversity activists or talking about "leftist bias" - I have only this to sayDid Trump, gamergaters and their ilk poison the society really that much that we are unable to debate anything without this kind of BS being thrown around at every opportunity? As if research was a class warfare or something.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 31, 2017, 09:27:24 pm
content: Thats not what they were saying, Howard, at least thats not what I think they are trying to say. They are saying they had the best success with people who were people. Part of a learning community.Its important for people to see the big picture of where all this technology is taking us, and be able to ask the question, is that where humanity wants, or needs, to go?Quote from: Howardlong on December 29, 2017, 06:49:31 amI think its likely that everybody who gets hired at Google is tech literate.It works both ways too, how many of those people want to work for Google?Would more want to work there- if...

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 31, 2017, 11:20:03 pm
content: Quote from: janoc on December 31, 2017, 09:21:57 pmMy comments havenothingto do with Trump but with the heavily polarized movements and tendencies that have been influenced by a large majority of professors belonging to the human sciences of universities all over the US, especially where Google is situated (see Berkeley riots, for example and their demand for safe spaces).That, tied to the fact this caused at least one person to lose its job under the same pretenses and Google's PR machine working to regain some image after this controversial topic, is enough to at least raise some eyebrows from my end. BTW, these polarized movements existed even before the elections were started.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 31, 2017, 11:28:29 pm
content: I was told by somebody who I know is in a position to know nine years back that HUGE amounts of money were being paid to professional firms to confuse key issues (health care was what we were talking about) How huge, almost a million dollars a day.I knew this person before the Internet existed, more than 30 years now, and back then he worked for the tobacco industry. He still works in advertising which in fact also tells us where I ran into him.I suspect that nothing is changed and people are now being paid to divide and conquer the nation by having people be particularly annoying to other people to close their minds. What I am getting at is the most extreme people we see may not be real, its being done in bad faith, specifically to prevent people from finding the common ground they have, for the purpose of trapping the country (and planet) into bad future policy. Irreversibly.----What does Google want?Well, they are one of the sponsors of TiSA.Which reminds me, they may be trying to prepare tech workers in places like the US and western EU for huge changes in their income earning capacity due to services liberalization.The so called "global gig economy"Quote from: rsjsouza on December 31, 2017, 11:20:03 pm

author: janoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 11:58:45 am
content: Quote from: rsjsouza on December 31, 2017, 11:20:03 pmHow does that have anything to do with the article? Just because you perceive something as "leftist" or coming from "leftis" circles or whatever makes the argument instantly invalid or what? That's like labeling everything one doesn't like "fake news" and dismissing it outright, reality be damned. What sort of argumentation is that?The humanities profs are rightfully feeling threatened because their funding is being cut left and right. However, they are not the ones instigating riots or the ones "polarizing" the society. I have yet to see a bunch of university profs walking the streets with guns, torches, spouting hate slogans, wearing nazi insignia, inviting others to do so or supporting such things. That they may be publishing works some people may not like is their job. Research is about discovering new facts, not about singing accolades to the status quo to avoid offending someone.If this was solely an output of "leftist bias" and "polarized society", then I do wonder why would e.g. the Scandinavian countries (e.g. Denmark where I have taught at an university) apply these criteria to their education since at least the 60-70ties? They have recognized that this has actually a value, that an engineer doesn't need to be taught every tool and method - those they can pick up themselves - but they need to be also exposed to the topics from humanities. So our engineerings students were learning basics from psychology, sociology, how to organize and evaluate focus groups, how do you observe and measure human behavior (not in the sense of datamining but actually observing a human being using some product), how to design things for human use and so on. And they have been wildly successful with it - the graduates are usually running circles around grads from "traditional" programs whenever it comes to starting own companies, running projects, managing time, etc. They are simply more "rounded" engineers, even though their CS background is not as deep or extensive as with the grads from the traditional programs.Oh and that Damore guy didn't get fired because he has expressed "inconvenient" views as many are trying to portray it but simply because he was a disruptive ass (Washington Post described him as an "annoying provocateur" ***). Some people seem to think that work is a debate club and feel entitled to push their views and opinions where nobody is interested in them, sticking their noses into things far beyond their pay grade. And when they get their arses (rightfully) handed to them for it, they are crying foul, censorship, "leftist bias" and what not.Seriously, what did he expect for publicly embarrassing his employer and creating a toxic atmosphere in the workplace? He would have been fired from pretty much anywhere for such stunt, regardless of whether it concerned diversity, women's rights or pushing for unionization, for example. After publishing that text he was pretty much unemployable inside of the company (and likely elsewhere too).If you want to rock the boat you need to accept there will be consequences for it. A job at Google is not a human right and as long as someone is paying you to work for them, you have to dance to their fiddle - or can pack up and go elsewhere. Work is not a democracy with guaranteed freedom of speech and what not. If some self-entitled idiot doesn't get this it is only their problem. If he wanted to have a serious debate on that subject he choose a very poor form to initiate it - and ended up paying for his stupidity.***https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/09/20/james-damore-just-proved-that-google-was-right-to-fire-him/That was after he has published some BS on Ku-Klux-Klan again after his dismissal from Google

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 12:42:23 pm
content: Quote from: janoc on January 01, 2018, 11:58:45 amI am just mentioning MY suspicions about the article based on recent facts that involved the company. You are the one calling my suspicion/opinion BS and conflating this with your discourse about Trump, your opinions about the person fired and your polarized view about how my suspicion somehow is morphed into a complete dismissal of the article at hand. Please let's keep this civil.Have a happy new year.P.S. this has not much to do with the original discussion but, to answer your second paragraph, always remember that students and paid professionals are usually the rioters, while professors and paid professionals are the indoctrinators/instigators. Sometimes professrs act more directly in the coercitive action, but that is rare or not well documented - Lindsey Shepherd and Laurier University is an example of a well documented case.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2018, 01:01:08 am
content: Quote from: cdev on December 31, 2017, 11:28:29 pmSorry man, but with conspiracy theories all over the place you're going to have to do better than "I know a guy". If it was just one topic, maybe, but you continue to post your theories in almost every thread and manage to make even the most mundane thing into something sinister.We're going to need some proper proof from now on.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2018, 02:35:19 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on December 29, 2017, 07:41:39 amAs somebody with Asperger, I'll say that not all of us are completely incapable of appropriate social interaction, rather much of it simply does not come naturally and has to be learned. Experience suggests that the vast majority of engineers have some autistic traits, it pretty well sums up the eccentricity forming the stereotypical engineer personality.Regarding Damore, I know nothing about his personality or what he was like to work with, it's entirely possible he is a complete douche but I do have some comments on that situation. I read the thing he wrote expecting to be offended, but instead found it to be well thought out and overall quite reasonable. It seems to me that many people read meaning into it that he did not write, I find nothing sexist about the suggestion that there are inherent biological differences between the sexes that extend to the way our minds work. It doesn't mean one gender is any smarter, better or more valuable than the other but there are clearly differences. A friend sent me an interesting article on the matter composed of comments by a number of real scientists.http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/One of them points out the interesting paradox in the argument that men and women of all cultural backgrounds think exactly alike yet on the other hand diversity provides a competitive advantage. If not for inherent differences, diversity would be irrelevant from a competitive standpoint. It seems to me that Google greatly overreacted, they did afterall request feedback and he provided it. Their reaction created a PR nightmare that they seem oblivious to. Google is very focused on certain types of diversity but they seem to have a very homogenous far left progressive culture, and I say this as someone who leans significantly left of center myself.