That Would Explain A Lot…

At Google, it’s generally accepted that you have to ship something new and exciting if you want to be promoted. Working on existing things means you can’t measure your impact as effectively, and thus the Promotion Czar will be displeased with your lack of impact.

This does much to explain why Google perpetually launches new services, lets them wither, and then kills them in the night. People want to be promoted, and if you want to Hire and Develop the Best, you need to offer a path to get recognition. (And honestly, going from a Systems Manager Assistant Dingus to a Systems Manager Lead Dingus means you can be more Frugal with traditional forms of comp; titles remain both free and untaxed.)

The problem with this is that Ownership often means accepting that you need to maintain something that exists rather than ignoring it entirely in favor of something ever-newer and far shinier.

The Google Disease Afflicting AWS