Reflecting on 18 years at Google

A great little post on how much Google has changed over the years. When I visited for an on-site interview in 2007, my takeaway vibe was, "yeah, right, all this nonsense won't last." Of course, the satisfaction I take from correctly predicting bad things happening brings me less joy than I wish it did.

The effects of layoffs are insidious. Whereas before people might focus on the user, or at least their company, trusting that doing the right thing will eventually be rewarded even if it's not strictly part of their assigned duties, after a layoff people can no longer trust that their company has their back, and they dramatically dial back any risk-taking. Responsibilities are guarded jealously. Knowledge is hoarded, because making oneself irreplaceable is the only lever one has to protect oneself from future layoffs.

I am very proud that Test Double's leadership has designed the company around minimizing the likelihood layoffs will ever be necessary, and that in the 12 years since we founded it, we have succeeded in avoiding them.

A recurring theme of my own career is that people generally fail to appreciate how big an impact one's emotional state has on knowledge workers. When people feel unsafe, they tend to prioritize making themselves feel safe over everything else. When work starts to feel like a slog, people move slower—that's literally what slogging means!

The best way to avoid the deleterious effects of layoffs, of course, is to do things to prevent them. Manage to profitability over revenue. Build a long runway of cash-equivalent reserves. Hire fewer full-timers and don't be shy about bringing on temporary help (which I wrote about earlier this year). Simple stuff—seemingly common sense, even—but increasingly unconventional.