HN Books @HNBooksMonth

I completely agree with your point, also made in the article: It would be not be surprising if some of these baccalaureate APMs wind up at Yahoo.

As the article pointed out, however, It’s not surprising that a high percentage of APMs go elsewhere. APMs are chosen for their ambition and independence. Those traits are often at odds with working at a big company

A successful executive at any organization could be expected to bring along X number of of loyal reports if they move laterally. It seems likely though that the especially ambitious and independent individuals discussed would be less likely to do so. This could be compounded by the reported personal difficulty some individuals had while working with her (Douglas Edwards' book http://www.amazon.com/Im-Feeling-Lucky-Confessions-Employee/...).

In all, the headline sensationalized the situation: she developed an employee incubator program at Google and some of the graduates will probably end up at Yahoo.

Edit:spacing

By the way, if you're interested in search, Google, or SEO, it's a pretty good book: http://www.amazon.com/Im-Feeling-Lucky-Confessions-Employee/... There's several anecdotes about the early days of Google that help explain why parts of Google turned out the way they did.

⬐ franze

i'm reading it currently (page 220 at the moment) i must say it's the best book about google yet.

it's actually the book about google i was waiting for. it's a book from an (ex) googler (no, i won't call them xoogerls) about google. it tells the story about the chaotic start up days, about their victories and their failures (and yes, there were failures), about the time when marketing had to "volunteer" to rewire servers, how brand and engineers fought about UX only to be overruled by sergy, how frustrating it can be to work with genius developers.

it is way better than "in the plex" (which is just "myth making" with little substance), much much better than all the "what would google do" like books, and much better than all SEO books (which are all sh#t anyway ... exception "search engine marketing incorporated")

well i'm on page 220 and there was not much about SEO yet. matt cutts and his p#rn cookies were mentioned, his fight against spam. there is a short story about "search for non PhD" which explains search engines pretty well (and holds more valuable information than you can get from an average SEO).

it also settles the question once and for all "does google uses the data from the google toolbar?" (the answer is: YES, and the green page rank bar (i call it "thought cancer bar") is indeed just a bait to turn on the "advanced features"). nothing new, but this time it's official (kind of). i hope that all the SEOs which claim that "it's not important what the users do after the SERP clickthrough" will finally be silenced.

@matt looking forward to your book...

⬐ raju

Have you read "In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives"? How does this book compare?

I don't mean to sound like a pg fanboy, but it sounds like he really liked it

https://twitter.com/#!/paulg/status/55382084155482113

⬐ wazoox

I found "in the plex" fascinating too, at least the first part. It gets a bit long when it goes into details of the Chinese debacle, the Obama campaign, etc. Stuff that isn't much "googley" :)

⬐ Andrenid

Hardcopy is 40c more than ebook? $9.99 for ebook, $10.39 for physical.

Digital pricing for books is really starting to get to me. It makes absolutely no sense why a digital version can cost nearly as much (and sometimes more) than a physical copy.

⬐ pchristensen

Being able to read a book, instantly, without it consuming additional physical space in your home is a feature for some people.