bigbee

Not really. It tries to measure "impact" and while direct measures like number of CLs can potentially go into that, this is definitely not the rule.

Then again, Google is best thought of as a collection of semi-independent companies loosely bound by culture. Individual managers have a lot of leeway in how they operate, and VPs and Directors have tons of control on how they run their organization, including measuring performance. There are good teams and there are not so good ones.

It's true that the way to become a software engineering manager starts at being a good engineer. The way to become a senior manager however is usually to be good at management.

They don't need to, because it's already tied to Google's stock performance! Over 90% of top executives' pay is in equity, so as the stock takes massive hits their pay takes a massive hit as well. Last December the board changed Sundar Pichai's compensation scheme so that most of his compensation is in PSUs (performance stock units) and not regular RSUs (restricted stock units). RSUs vest over time, no matter what. PSUs are only granted based on hitting some performance targets calculated as the stock's performance vs. the market. In other words, the stock not performing well means that the majority of Sundar's pay goes away.

BTW, this is true not just for top executives. The higher your level in big tech companies, the higher the proportion of your total compensation that is stock based. Even mid-senior levels get a majority of their compensation in RSUs.

I've done exactly that in my early 30s. Bootstrapped, then raised a couple of rounds, couldn't raise again so went back to bootstrap mode, but ultimately failed. It was a rough period, but I survived to thrive as a senior in a FAANG nowadays. My marriage survived too and is better than ever.

Before I started my wife and I calculated by how much we can reduce our spending and figured that between her salary and our savings we could go on for about a year while maintaining an acceptable quality of life (for us) and not going into debt. While I was going through this her pay went up significantly (and unexpectedly), which allowed me to extend my personal runway. In the end, after ~four years, we were left with no savings at all and I had to take a job I didn't like because I had to start bringing money in. That was fine - I quit after a short while for a much better job. So the key was planning ahead financially and agreeing in advance on the limits: minimum standard of living we won't go below, and not going into debt. This proved very important in hindsight because it marked when I had to stop trying - I never wanted to give up, but had I continued, I would have jeopardized the most important things in life.

Another point about the marriage: my wife and I are together in this journey called life and support each other's hopes and dreams. I paid most of our bills while she was going through her PhD, then she did (plus we spent our savings) while I was doing the startup. Now I'm doing well, so she took a partial leave while she's pursuing hobbies and trying to figure out the next step in her career.

Yes! And the monetization in this case isn’t display ads but rather charging businesses for communicating with their customers.

Costs grew due to a hiring binge (that can be easily stopped, or even reversed - it’s entirely in Google’s hands) and to increased costs for their data centers (hardware, electricity) which are cyclical. There’s no indication so far of any fundamental long-term changes to the cost structure.

GCP is the fastest growing Google product, and its revenue growth rate is much higher than its costs growth. So (1) there’s a clear path to profitability and (2) it’s Google’s best story so far for a revenue stream beyond ads. They’ve been saying for several years now with every financial report that they see a huge opportunity in cloud and will continue investing. They definitely don’t lack the cash flow to continue.

Original title: “Eat less, live longer Salk scientists show how caloric restriction prevents negative effects of aging in cells”

What it should have been: Are you a lab rat? Eat less, live longer! Salk scientists show how caloric restriction prevents negative effects of aging in cells of rats

Another Israeli here. I watched those intercepts taking place over my head. Add to that the numerous YouTube videos of such intercepts and let's call the lot "experimental evidence". That should trump the article's theoretical analysis imo :)

My experience running such a consulting firm in the (distant) past was that the best way to stay profitable is to focus on WOM. Use any connections you have now to get some gigs, do above and beyond (regardless of what those early clients pay you) to make those customers extremely happy, and new project will keep coming your way. The best thing about those referrals was that they were mostly serious - not just checking us to convince themselves that using some company in India is so much cheaper, and tended to close. Other forms of promotion, PR mostly, resulted in lots of phones and meetings that usually led to nothing and proved to be a huge waste of time. Since in a consulting firm time = money in a the most acute sense, that hurt.

Oh, and regarding your website, you should improve the design. Don't think of it as a way to get new clients, that's unlikely. However, even if someone had heard about you through a referral, they check out your website first. It must look professional (i.e. business-like boring). If it doesn't, you lost them before they even talked to you. So this isn't a matter of getting clients, it's a matter of not losing them.

I used to use RSSBandig (http://rssbandit.org/) before switching over completely to Google Reader. Of course, it's desktop based, so doesn't fit your requirements. It does have a nice sync option with web-based readers - http://rssbandit.org/features/synchronizing-feeds-with-googl...

I looked at it for 30 seconds, didn't figure out why I'd want to switch over from shelfari and left.

I think you should make it much easier for people who arrive at your website understand why they should stay.

We also use trac, although it's features are rather basic. We kind of gotten to it by default - because we got it packaged with svn and a wiki. I guess it's just good enough and there was never a reason compelling enough to switch.

The easiest way is to use MySQL's own query cache. Increasing its size yields wonderful results.

On linux, edit my.cnf and add the following:

  [mysqld]
  ...
  query_cache_type=1
  query_cache_limit=1M
  query_cache_size=128M # or more - depends on you total  available RAM
  key_buffer=128M # or more

You have an idea for a start-up? Now work!

I used to suffer from RSI in both my wrists years ago. Switching to ergonomic keyboards solved the problem. I'm using the "Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard". Just to prove that this was indeed the cause, whenever I travel for a while with my laptop only, my wrists start hurting again.

Start by building your best thing that works for most users. Most people work in 1024 resolution or higher, and don't bother with disabling cookies or javascript. Trying to support everyone right away is just like premature optimization. Get something out first, then work to support exceptions if you see that you actually have users that would want that.

Everything from Seth Godin. Permission Marketing, All Marketers are Liers and Purple Cow are my personal favorites.

I've been using ServerBeach for about 8 months now, growing from 1 dedicated server to 4, and am quite happy with them. No downtimes or problems of any kind so far. If you decide to use them, you can use my referral code - ND86GGNNTQ - to get $100 off.

For the $10 it costs you to register another domain, I'd say it's worth the price to get the .net, .org, and possibly some European/Asian domains if you can see yourself doing business there in the future. I wouldn't go into companynamesucks.com and the like though - there's no end to the number of such domains that people can come up with if they really want to hurt you. A better use of your time and money would be to make sure you don't give customers a reason to say you suck...

Our first lump of cash came from angel investors that I got to know working (as an employee, not a founder) in a previous startup. In general, people who know you already, are more likely to be willing to bet on you.