Google: Alleged Candidate Filtering
February 18, 2021
Who knows if this story is 100 percent spot on. It does illustrate a desire to present the Google in a negative way, and it seems to make clear how simple filters can come back to bite the hands of the busy developers who add features and functions without much thought for larger implications.
The story is “Google Has Been Allowing Advertisers to Exclude Nonbinary People from Seeing Job Ads.” The main idea seems to be:
Google’s advertising system allowed employers or landlords to discriminate against nonbinary and some transgender people…
Oh, oh.
If true, the check box for “exclude these” could become a bit of a sink hole.
The write up points out:
It’s not clear if the advertisers meant to prevent nonbinary people or those identifying as transgender from finding out about job openings.
Interesting item if accurate.
Stephen E Arnold, February 18, 2021
Objectifying the Hiring Process: Human Judgment Must Be Shaped
February 18, 2021
The controversies about management-employee interactions are not efficient. Consider Google. Not only did the Timnit Gibru dust up sully the pristine, cheerful surface of the Google C-suite, the brilliance of the Google explanation moved the bar for high technology management acumen. Well, at least in terms of publicity it was a winner. Oh, the Gibru incident probably caught the attention of female experts in artificial intelligence. Other high technology and consumer of talent from high prestige universities paid attention as well.
What’s the fix for human intermediated personnel challenges? The answer is to get the humans out of the hiring process if possible. Software and algorithms, databases of performance data, and the jargon of psycho-babble are the path forward. If an employee requires termination, the root cause is an algorithm, not a human. So sue the math. Don’t sue the wizards in the executive suite.
These ideas formed in my mind when I read “The Computers Rejecting Your Job Application.” The idea is that individuals who want a real job with health care, a retirement program, and maybe a long tenure with a stable out” get interviewed via software. Decisions about hiring pivot on algorithms. Once the thresholds are crossed by a candidate, a human (who must take time out from a day filled with back to back Zoom meetings) will notify the applicant that he or she has a “real” job.
If something goes Gibru, the affected can point fingers at the company providing the algorithmic deciders. Damage can be contained. There’s a different throat to choke. What’s not to like?
The write up from the Beeb, a real news outfit banned in China, reports:
The questions, and your answers to them, are designed to evaluate several aspects of a jobseeker’s personality and intelligence, such as your risk tolerance and how quickly you respond to situations. Or as Pymetrics puts it, “to fairly and accurately measure cognitive and emotional attributes in only 25 minutes”.
Yes, online. Just 25 minutes. Forget those annoying interview days. Play a game. Get hired or not. Efficient. Logical.
Do online hiring and filtering systems work. The write up reminds the thumb typing reader about Amazon’s algorithmic hiring and filtering system:
In 2018 it was widely reported to have scrapped its own system, because it showed bias against female applicants. The Reuters news agency said that Amazon’s AI system had “taught itself that male candidates were preferable” because they more often had greater tech industry experience on their resume. Amazon declined to comment at the time.
From my vantage point, it seems as if these algorithmic hiring vendors are selling their services. That’s great until one of the customers takes the outfit to court.
Progress? Absolutely.
Stephen E Arnold, February 17, 2021
Alphabet Google Spells Misunderstanding with a You
February 17, 2021
Developers at Google’s recently formed game studios were shocked February 1 when they were notified that the studios would be shut down, according to four sources with knowledge of what transpired. Just the week prior, Google Stadia vice president and general manager Phil Harrison sent an email to staff lauding the “great progress” its studios had made so far. Mass layoffs were announced a few days later, part of an apparent pattern of Stadia leadership not being honest and upfront with the company’s developers, many of which had upended their lives and careers to join the team.
The Stadia Xooglers-to-be tried to get more information from Alphabet Google. According to the article:
One source described the Q&A as an ultimately unsuccessful attempt at extracting some kind of accountability from Stadia management. “I think people really just wanted the truth of what happened,” said the source. “They just want an explanation from leadership. If you started this studio and hired a hundred or so of these people, no one starts that just for it to go away in a year or so, right? You can’t make a game in that amount of time…We had multi-year reassurance, and now we don’t.” The source added that the Q&A “wasn’t pretty.”
The management finesse is notable. If the information in the article is accurate, the consistency of Alphabet Google’s management methods is evident. I have labeled the approach “the high school science club management method” or HSSCMM. With the challenges many business schools face, the technique is not explored with the rigor of other approaches. Nevertheless, several characteristics of this Stadia motif are worth noting:
- Misinformation
- Awkward communications
- Insensitivity to the needs of Googlers on the express bus to Xooglerdom
- A certain blindness toward strategic and tactical planning.
Online games are bigger than many other forms of entertainment. I recall learning that in the mid 2000s, Google probed Yahoo about online games if I recall the presentation I heard 15 years ago.
Taking the article at face value, it appears that Alphabet Google spells misunderstanding with a you. There is no letter “we” in Alphabet I conclude. High school science club members struggle with the pronoun and spelling thing I conclude.
What’s the outlook for Alphabet Google in the burgeoning online game sector? Options include:
- Acquiring a company and integrating it into the Google
- Cleaning the high school and leaving the Science Club leadership intact
- Creating a duplicate service with activity centered in another country which is a variation on Google’s approach to messaging
- Going into a holding pattern and making a fresh start once the news cycle forgets that Alphabet Google failed on the well publicized game initiative.
- Teaming with Microsoft to create the bestest online game service ever.
Stephen E Arnold, February 17, 2021
Data Security: Clubhouse Security and Data Integrity Excitement?
February 15, 2021
Here in rural Kentucky “clubhouse” means a lower cost shack where some interesting characters gather. There are many “clubs” in rural Kentucky, and not many of them are into the digital flow of Silicon Valley. Some of those “members” do love the tweeter and similar real time, real “news” systems.
Imagine my surprise when I read Stanford Internet Observatory’s report from its Cyber Policy Center “Clubhouse in China: Is the Data Safe?” I thought that the estimable Stanford hired experts who knew that “data” is plural. Thus the headline from the highly intellectual SIPCPC would have written the headline “Clubhouse in China: Are the Data Safe?” (Even some of the members of the Harrod’s Creek moonshine club know that subject-verb agreement is preferred even for graduates of the local skill high school.
Let’s overlook the grammar and consider the “real” information in the write up. The write up has six authors. That’s quite a team.
The SIPCPC determined that Clubhouse uses software and services from a company based in Shanghai. The question is, “Does the Chinese government have access to the data flowing in the Clubhouse super select and awfully elite “conversations”?
The answer it turns out is, “Huh. What?”
Clubhouse was banned by the Chinese government. SIPCPC (I almost typed CCP but caught myself) and the response from the Clubhouse dances around the issue. There are assurances that Clubhouse is going to be more strong.
The only problem is that the SIPCPC and the Clubhouse write up skirt such topics as:
- Implications of the SolarWinds’ misstep which operated for month prior to detection and there are zero indicators reporting that the breach and its malware have been put in the barn.
- Intercept technology within data centers in many countries make it possible to capture information (bulk and targeted)
- The decision to rely on Agora raises interesting implications about the judgment of the Clubhouse management team.
Net net: Interesting write up which casts an interesting light on the SIPCPC findings and the super zippy Clubhouse. If one cannot get subject verb agreement correct, what other issues have been ignored?
Stephen E Arnold, February 15, 2021
Managing Engineers: Make High School Science Club Management Methods More High School-Like?
February 4, 2021
I read an interesting and thoughtful essay in Okay HQ. “Engineering Productivity Can Be Measured – Just Not How You’d Expect.” The “you” seems to be me. That’s okay. As a student of the brilliant HSSCMM encapsulated in decisions related to handling staff, I am fascinated by innovations.
The write up points out:
Since the advent of the software industry, most engineering teams have seen productivity as a black box. Only recently have people even begun to build internal tools that optimize performance. Unfortunately, most of these tools measure the wrong metrics and are shockingly similar across companies.
The idea is that MBA like measures are off the mark.
How does the HSSCMM get back on track? The write up states:
Productivity in engineering therefore naturally increases when you remove the blockers getting in the way of your team.
The idea of a “blocker” is a way to encapsulate the ineffective, inefficient, and clumsy management tactics touted by Peter Drucker and other management experts.
What does a member of the science club perceive as a blocker?
- Too many interruptions
- Slow code reviews
- Lousy development tools
- Too much context switching (seems like a variant of interruptions, doesn’t it?)
- Getting pinged to do work outside of business hours (yep, another variation of interrupting a science club member).
Let’s summarize my HSSCMM principles. The engineers — at least the ones in the elite of the science club — want to be managed by these precepts:
- Don’t interrupt the productive engineers/professionals
- Don’t give us tools the productive / engineers and professionals don’t find useful, helpful, good, or up to our standards
- Provide feedback, right now, you inefficient and unproductive human
- Don’t annoy productive engineers / professionals outside of “work” hours.
These seem perfectly reasonable if somewhat redundant. However, these productive engineers / professionals have created the systems, methods, apps, and conventions that destroy attention, yield lousy software and tools, and nourish the mind set which has delivered the joys of Twitter, Facebook, Robinhood, et al to the world.
Got that, Druckerites? If not, our innovations in artificial intelligence will predict your behaviors and our neuro morphic systems will make you follow the precepts of the science club.
That sound about right?
Stephen E Arnold, February 4, 2021
Google Management: What Happens When Science Club Management Methods Emulate Secret Societies?
January 27, 2021
A secret society is one with special handshakes, initiation routines, and a code of conduct which prohibits certain behavior. Sometimes even a secret society has a trusted, respected member whose IQ and personal characteristics are what might be called an “issue.” My hunch is that the write up “Google Hired a Lawyer to Probe Bullying Claims about DeepMind Cofounder Mustafa Suleyman and Shifted His Role” may be a good example — if the real news is indeed accurate — of mostly adult judgment. [The linked document resides behind a paywall … because money.]
As I understand the information in this write up, uber wizard Mustafa Suleyman allegedly engaged in behavior the Googlers found out of bounds. Note, however, that the alleged perpetrator was not terminated. Experts in smart software are tough to locate and hire. Mr. Suleyman was given a lateral arabesque. First defined by Laurence J. Peter is that some management issues can be resolved by shifts to a comparable level of the hierarchy just performing different management or job functions. A poor manager could be encouraged to accept a position as chief quality officer in an organization’s new office in Alert, in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. (Bring a Google sweater.)
DeepMind is known for crushing a human Go player, who may now be working as a delivery person for Fanji Braised Meat in Preserved Sauce on Zhubashi in Xian, China. The company developed software able to teach itself the game of checkers. Allegedly DeepMind performed magic with protein folding calculations, but it seems to have come up short on problems for solving death and providing artificial general intelligence for a user of Google calendar.
These notable technical accomplishments may have produced a sinkhole brimming with red ink. The 2019 Google financials indicate that about $1 billion in debt has been written off. Revenue appears to be a bit of a challenge for the Googlers working on technology that will generate sustainable revenue for Google’s next 20 years.,
And what about those management methods channeling how high school science clubs operated in the 1950s:
- Generate fog to make it difficult to discern exactly what happened and why Google’s in house people professionals could not gather the information about alleged bullying? Why a lawyer? Why not a private investigative group? There are some darned good ones in merrie olde Angleland.
- Mixed signals are emitted. If something actionable occurred, why not let the aggrieved go through appropriate legal and employee oversight channels to resolve the matter? Answer: Let someone else have the responsibility. The science club does science, not human like stuff.
- The dodge-deflect-apologize pattern is evident to me in rural Kentucky. How long will this adolescent tactic remain functional?
To sum up, the science club did something. What is fuzzy? Why is fuzzy? Keep folks guessing maybe? What will those bright sprouts in the high school science club do next? Put a cow on top of Big Ben?
Stephen E Arnold, January 27, 2021
More Google Smart Software Ethics Excitement
January 21, 2021
Generally speaking, the publicity swirling around the Timnit Gebru matter has not been flattering to Googzilla. If the write up “Google’s New Union is Outraged As the Firm Investigates a Second AI Ethicist: Being Targeted by One of the World’s Largest Corporations Is Terrifying,” the mom and pop company should be pleased to be labeled “one of the world’s largest corporations.” Google is facing tough competition from DuckDuckGo, an outfit that uses other companies’ search outputs and Ecosia, a green search engine. Yep, green.
According to the write up, the notion of ethics seems to irritate Googzilla. I learned:
…e Alphabet Workers Union, which went public earlier this month, has hit out at the decision to suspend Mitchell, branding the move an “attack on the people who are trying to make Google’s technology more ethical.”
I am not going to get into the debate about whether this particular “union” is a real Jimmy Hoffa style operation.
The main point is that where ethics are an issue, the online advertising store — which faces intense competition from companies with which is may have an understanding — takes actions which underscore the excellence of management’s deft touch.
Useful management insight. But a mom and pop outfit is expected to have some management tools which baffle outsiders. Perhaps an employee handbook will surface which explains the rules of the information highway promulgated by the most sensitive company in Silicon Valley?
Stephen E Arnold, January 22l, 2021
Insight into the Fumbles from Management by Metrics
January 21, 2021
If you are into MBA speak, “management by metrics” makes perfect sense to you. You may even whisper the phrase to your significant other under certain circumstances. “How Management by Metrics Leads Us Astray” is a helpful explanation about the steady deterioration of product quality in much of US business and services.
The write up explains:
Google’s search results are dominated by ads and many users now use workarounds to find what they’re looking for (“Best headphone reddit”). LinkedIn looks like Minesweeper. Facebook was a fun place to meet friends. And if you search for an electronics product on Amazon, you immediately feel like you’re at a flea market in the middle of Shenzhen. This is the result of hundreds of decisions that were motivated by a short-term focus on specific metrics like revenue and click rates. And while these decisions most likely optimized the metrics, they made the user experience worse. The problem is that we don’t have the technology to measure the right thing. Or maybe the “right thing” is inherently immeasurable.
I would extend the notion of management to a more subjective notion. Those who think they understand metrics believe that “logical thought” facilitates other decisions. The result is that wrong headed assumptions and overbearing arrogance create some fascinating business decisions.
My term for this adolescent approach to making judgments is “high school science club management.” Science club — at least when I was in high school — consisted of bright youth who were darned sure of their brilliance. Interacting with science club members reinforced the perceptions of excellence, superiority, and intellectual invincibility. Thus, high school science club is a wondrous example of managing to ensure social and political disaster. The more money a technology centric company makes, the greater the social and political costs.
If you read it before dozing off at night, you could whisper the companies mentioned in your partner’s ear. Delightful.
Stephen E Arnold, January 21, 2021
Secrets of Google Human Resources: You Too Can Capture World Headlines and Generate Opportunities to Apologize
January 20, 2021
I read “A Former Google People Manager’s Advice on Designing Teamwork in Silicon Valley.” The subtitle is a Googley wonder:
Distribute authority with design thinking
How will Timnit Gebru react to the article? What about those involved in the quasi unionization of the Google?
I don’t know. I do know that the essay is a good example of high school science club management in action. Let me explain.
First, forget the human resource moniker or the more plebian personnel manager. The Google way is to use the term people manager.
Second, the metaphor which snagged my attention was “autonomous slime mold.” Tasty, just the thing for a science club member’s essay on “How to Win Friends Like a Slime Mold.”
Third, engage in bias busting. Here’s an example of what I call Gebru empathy:
By incorporating experts from other fields, you might come to outcomesthat weren’t available using previous methods but could be utilizedin new ways based on what’s been done in other industries, otherexpertises, and different perspectives. This _bias busting_ can help your specialized teams uncover their blind spots and assumptions about the problem space with new insightsfrom other disciplines. A healthy dose of humbleness works wonderswhen problem solving.
Fourth, deal with disagreements by setting expectations. Yes, but are those expectations written down in an employee handbook? Is the handbook updated on a regular basis? Ho ho ho.
Fifth, define success. Do good work? But what at the Google is good work? Hooking on a team which has the backing of the big bosses? Generating lots of revenue via a clever hack to advantage the GOOG? Being a friend or high school chum of a Board member or another top dog? What about having expertise which sheds light on what an assumed rival is doing?
To sum up, the litigation, the chatter about employee discrimination, and the Gebru research dust up illustrate the fruits of high school science club management applied to humanoids.
Stephen E Arnold, January 20, 2021
High School Science Club Management: The Microsoft GitHub Example
January 18, 2021
Anyone who reads Beyond Search knows that I eschew the old saws of management consulting. No Druckerisms here. I go for more evocative terminology such as HSSCMM or high school science club management methods. The high school science club was the last refuge for those who were not “into” the flow of athletes, elected school representatives, and doing just enough to pass a class in home economics. Nope, the HSSC was THE place for those who knew better than anyone else what was important, knew better how to accomplish a task, and knew better than anyone the wonderfulness of such an esteemed organization.
Thus, a HSSCMM is a rare thing.
I believe I have spotted an example ably described in “GitHub Admits Significant Error of Judgment…” I would point out that GitHub is a Microsoft property and has been since late 2018, sufficient time for the outstanding culture of the Redmond giant to diffuse into the code repository/publishing entity.
The “error” concerns a knee jerk response to a person’s post using a forbidden word. After the employee was terminated, others in the science club management team decided that the dismissal was a misstep. Bigger or smaller than the SolarWinds’ modest toe bump? Who knows.
But, by golly, the Microsoft-GitHub science club alums convened and took a decision: Fire the personnel manager (sometimes called a people manager or a human resources leader).
The management precepts I derive from this fascinating chain of events are:
- Be deciders. Don’t dally. Then without too much hand waving reverse course. The science club precept is that lesser entities will not recall the change of direction.
- Seek scapegoats. Use the Teflon approach so that that which is thrown slides upon the lesser entity, in this case, the amusing people manager function.
- Avoid linking the actions of one part of the science club to the larger science club of which the smaller is merely a decorative ornament; that is, omit the fact that GitHub is owned by Microsoft.
I may have these precepts in a poorly formed state, but I think this GitHub admits article provides a provocative case example. I wonder if Mr. Drucker would agree.
Stephen E Arnold, January 18, 2021
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