7 ms·

Reflecting on 3 Years At Facebook

87 points by arjunb 16y ago

sosuke 16y ago
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.
- hyperbovine 16y ago
  A lot of staring at screens and eating free food. There's more to life... Oh wait, you get to wear a sombrero.
  - sosuke 16y ago
    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.
    - amackera 16y ago
      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 16y ago
        ..by purchasing a sombrero at once.
sabj 16y ago
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.
alanh 16y ago
Interesting, but hard to consider a "look back" posted on an official Facebook blog as anything but necessarily whitewashed. (Not knocking.)
- donaldc 16y ago
  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.
moultano 16y ago
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.
- dschobel 16y ago
  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 16y ago
    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.)
    - nostrademons 16y ago
      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 16y ago
        Sorry, can you explain what constitutes a "panda" or a "lobster" task?
holman 16y ago
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.
- nvoorhies 16y ago
  There's also the aspect of plain talk about concrete lessons learned being valuable to competitors in a way that feel-good self promotion isn't. While it'd be nice to be able to learn from peoples' mistakes the first time those mistakes are ever made, it's saving a lot of money and effort that your competitors will have to make to learn the same lessons. Once the knowledge of what works and what doesn't is wide spread enough, it's no longer an issue, and you can write a feel good fluff piece about it without getting into the gritty details, and get most all of the beneficial karma from fans and community, without giving away too many tips to rivals. I'd argue that the reason it's not kosher to give away secrets of how you did something at a big place is that once you get big enough, there's always someone around who can argue that the secrets are inestimably valuable, and the benefits in the form of developing community are paltry by comparison.
  - holman 16y ago
    I'd rather be making those mistakes and pushing the industry forward than being the one taking the scraps from someone else's blog. You may mention part of the solution in your post, but the solution that takes one sentence to detail actually may have stemmed from weeks and months of detailed, considered thought. Sure, the competitor may then bypass all your discussions and go straight to the "solution", but I'd argue the discussions and considered thought puts your company in a far better position to out-maneuver the competitor in the future for the very reason that you've been thinking about the problem domain much longer, and in a much broader sense. Getting to the result without the understanding doesn't yield long-term success.
jrockway 16y ago
Wow, Facebook's site says Facebook is a good place to work?
- elblanco 16y ago
  It's like reading one of those breathless self-promotional google or palantir blog posts.
noahth 16y ago
awesome post, until he calls the folks he manages "rockstars." can we please all just move past that ridiculous cliche??
- joelmichael 16y ago
  I like it more than "hacker."
benjaminlotan 16y ago
For me this was the first (real/substantial?) blog post i've read on Facebook. Just throwing that out there.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

87 points by arjunb 16y ago

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.

hyperbovine 16y ago
A lot of staring at screens and eating free food. There's more to life... Oh wait, you get to wear a sombrero.
- sosuke 16y ago
  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.
  - amackera 16y ago
    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 16y ago
      ..by purchasing a sombrero at once.

sabj 16y ago

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.

alanh 16y ago

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

donaldc 16y ago
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.

moultano 16y ago

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.

dschobel 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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.)
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    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 16y ago
      Sorry, can you explain what constitutes a "panda" or a "lobster" task?

holman 16y ago

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.

nvoorhies 16y ago
There's also the aspect of plain talk about concrete lessons learned being valuable to competitors in a way that feel-good self promotion isn't. While it'd be nice to be able to learn from peoples' mistakes the first time those mistakes are ever made, it's saving a lot of money and effort that your competitors will have to make to learn the same lessons. Once the knowledge of what works and what doesn't is wide spread enough, it's no longer an issue, and you can write a feel good fluff piece about it without getting into the gritty details, and get most all of the beneficial karma from fans and community, without giving away too many tips to rivals. I'd argue that the reason it's not kosher to give away secrets of how you did something at a big place is that once you get big enough, there's always someone around who can argue that the secrets are inestimably valuable, and the benefits in the form of developing community are paltry by comparison.
- holman 16y ago
  I'd rather be making those mistakes and pushing the industry forward than being the one taking the scraps from someone else's blog. You may mention part of the solution in your post, but the solution that takes one sentence to detail actually may have stemmed from weeks and months of detailed, considered thought. Sure, the competitor may then bypass all your discussions and go straight to the "solution", but I'd argue the discussions and considered thought puts your company in a far better position to out-maneuver the competitor in the future for the very reason that you've been thinking about the problem domain much longer, and in a much broader sense. Getting to the result without the understanding doesn't yield long-term success.

jrockway 16y ago

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

elblanco 16y ago
It's like reading one of those breathless self-promotional google or palantir blog posts.

noahth 16y ago

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

joelmichael 16y ago
I like it more than "hacker."

benjaminlotan 16y ago

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

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]