Jonathan Rosenberg (mathematician)

Transcription

Hey guys, so in this video. I�m going to share with you guys 8 quotes from the book, �How Google Works� This book was written by 2 people. The 1st person is Eric Schmidt who was google�s CEO for 10 years. From 2001 to 2011. The 2nd person was Jonathan Rosenberg, who was the Senior Vice President of Products for 9 years. I�ve added a transcript to this video, so if it helps subtitles helps you follow along better then you can turn those on. So in the first quote, Eric Schmidt is describing pretty much your perfect employee Which he calls a smart creative A smart creative has deep technical knowledge in how to use the tools of her trade, and plenty of hands-on experience. In our industry, that means she is most likely a computer scientist, or at least understands the tenets and structure of the systems behind the magic you see on your screens every day. But in other industries she may be a doctor, designer, scientist, filmmaker, engineer, chef, or mathematician. She is an expert in doing. She doesn�t just design concepts, she builds prototypes. She is analytically smart. She is comfortable with data and can use it to make decisions. Let data decide, she believes, but don�t let it take over. She is competitive smart. Her stock-in-trade starts with innovation, but it also includes a lot of work. She is driven to be great, and that doesn�t happen 9-to-5. Now the reason why I wanted to talk about smart creatives is throughout the book these 2 authors constantly mention smart creatives, and so later on in the book they say Their common characteristic (and by common characteristic they mean smart creatives) is that They work hard and are willing to question the status quo and attack things differently. This is why they can have such an impact. It is also why they are uniquely difficult to manage, especially under old models, because no matter how hard you try, you can�t tell people like that how to think. If you can�t tell someone how to think, then you have to learn to manage the environment where they think. And make it a place where they want to come every day. I think this is great for my audience because I know you guys are trying to get jobs, And he kind of describes what he sees of a perfect employee, and the characteristics of a perfect employee And my favorite part of this quote is how he mentions that smart creatives, they don�t just follow orders and mindnumb themselves and do what they�re told They kinda think on their own, and they�re not really influenced too much by outside sources. Now I know for me, I think I�m pretty hard to manage because if I don�t like a job, I�ll just leave. I think for me, I can relate to that last part of the quote a lot With that being said let�s move on to quote #2 Many people, when considering a job, are primarily concerned with their role and responsibilities, the company�s track record, the industry, and compensation. Further down on that list, probably somewhere between �length of commute� and �quality of coffee in the kitchen,� comes culture. Smart creatives, though, place culture at the top of the list. To be effective, they need to care about the place they work. This is why, when starting a new company or initiative, culture is the most important thing to consider. Now this is something I learned myself the hard way. Is that you can have the perfect job at the perfect company, but if you don�t culturally fit with the people, the time at your job is going to be miserable And for me, that exact same thing happened to me when I did engineering. I had the exact job I wanted, at the exact company and I just didn�t like the people and so eventually I left that career Now for a lot of my younger views, I think this is a quote that directly speaks to you Is that you have to find the industry and company that matches your personality That is a top priority Let�s move on to quote #3 Offices should be designed to maximize energy and interactions, not for isolation and status. Smart creatives thrive on interacting with each other. The mixture you get when you cram them together is combustible, so a top priority must be to keep them crowded. When you can reach out and tap someone on the shoulder, there is nothing to get in the way of communications and the flow of ideas. The traditional office layout, with individual cubicles and offices, is designed so that the steady state is quiet. Most interactions between groups of people are either planned (a meeting in a conference room) or serendipitous (the hallway / water cooler / walking through the parking lot meeting). This is exactly backward; the steady state should be highly interactive, with boisterous, crowded offices brimming with hectic energy. Now if you guys have ever worked a corporate job. You know that it�s frowned upon to be talking Because if you�re talking then you�re not working. Well at google they think completely opposite. They want you to be talking. They want you to be interacting with your co-workers because that�s how ideas are generated I thought that was an interesting quote, and I hope more companies encourage their companies to talk to each other and yeah that talking won�t always be about work but you never know where that conversation is going to lead and they might come up with a great idea on accident Next quote Working from home during normal working hours, which to many represents the height of enlightened culture, is a problem that�as Jonathan frequently says� can spread throughout a company and suck the life out of its workplace. To sum it up, he says working from home is ass for a company Don�t do it #6 Google�s AdSense product, which developed into a multibillion-dollar business, was invented one day by a group of engineers from different teams who were playing pool in the office. Your partner or roommate is probably great, but the odds of the two of you coming up with a billion-dollar business during a coffee break at home are pretty small, even if you do have a pool table. so I think that was pretty interesting to learn about, is that google�s adsense product came from engineers from different teams just hanging out, playing pool. That just goes to show that having amenities in your office is a good thing. Quote #5 A great start-up, a great project� a great job, for that matter�should be fun, and if you�re working your butt off without deriving any enjoyment, something�s probably wrong. Part of the fun comes from inhaling the fumes of future success. But a lot of it comes from laughing and joking and enjoying the company of your coworkers. Most companies try to manufacture Fun, with a capital F. As in: We are having Fun at the annual company picnic / holiday party / off-site on Friday. There will be Fun music. There will be Fun prizes. There will be a Fun contest of some sort that will embarrass some of your coworkers. There will be Fun face painting / clowns / fortune-tellers. There will be Fun food (but no Fun alcohol). You will go. You will have Fun. There�s a problem with these Fun events: They are not fun. It�s funny because as I reading this I was recalling my time back when I was an intern for SoCal Gas and I had so many flashbacks, that I couldn�t believe it because I had moments where if I wasn�t being paid to have Fun and I hang out. I wouldn�t have been there. And that�s something different from where I work now. Where I work now, if we�re going to get beers, I�ll go even though I�m not being paid and I think that�s really important for anyone�s happiness Is that you should enjoy the company of your coworkers even outside of work And finding a group of coworkers that you like, honestly, it�s going to probably going to take about 10 jobs. If you think about all the people you meet that you don�t get along with vs the people you meet that you actually do get along with. It�s pretty slim Alright the next quote reads: When people are right out of school, (meaning most of you guys, who are my audience) they tend to prioritize company first, then job, then industry. But at this point in their career that is exactly the wrong order. The right industry is paramount, because while you will likely switch companies several times in your career, it is much harder to switch industries. I really like this quote a lot because a lot of you guys send me e-mails saying, �Hey Matt, how do I get a job at Google?� �Hey Matt, how do I get a job at Facebook?� Don�t worry about getting a job at Google, Facebook, or Amazon First, worry about getting your foot in your door in a relevant position that will eventually lead you to Google, these companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon. They can be really picky because a lot of people want to work there so naturally they�re going to get Stanford graduates or they're going to get UC Berkeley graduates. But hey, if you get experience, and get 5 years of experience then yeah you can apply for google and you�ll have a good chance. Alright so the quote continues: After you pick the industry, then it�s time to pick the company. When you do, listen for the people who truly get technology. These are the genius-level smart creatives who see, before the rest of us, where technology is going and how it will transform industries . Now I think this can be applied to any industry, Not just technology. It�s seeing how technology going to push music forward Or how it�s going to push online selling forward It�s all about using online technology so that you�re with technology As it changes industries Alright so the last quote is for all your math majors out there who have been bothering the shit out of me. Stats are sexy. Deal with it. The sexiest jobs in the Internet Century will involve statistics... No matter your business, learn how the right data, crunched the right way, will help you make better decisions. so all you guys thinking about majoring in Math or Statistics, I probably recommend statistics more, but keep in mind the Statistics that you learn in your bachelors degree is not exactly related to Statistics you�ll be doing in real life but it is a good beginning, but a lot of what you�ll learn is at the job so if you want to do statistics apparently Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google for 10 years recommends it.