jrauser

I never worked for google (interviewed but was rejected) but I have suspected this is true -- that there was a sweet spot where google was a magical place, but that time has long passed.

One of the better decisions I ever made was not ignoring emails from folks recruiting for Amazon in 2003. It was a different place back then, and truly like "the world's largest startup." The other thing that was different back then was that the people I worked with were all so blindingly smart. I'm pretty smart, but in 2003 I often felt like the dumbest person in the room[1]. In 2025 that feeling was rare, and not simply because I had 20 years more wisdom.

I left Amazon for the third and last time a couple months ago and have no regrets.

If you're still there and reading this, Amazon still has a lot going for it as a place to work. But it's not the electric place I recall from 20 years ago. I'm not sure if there is any company that can match both the startup-like freedom of action with massive scale of early 2000s Amazon.

[1] In case it isn't obvious: this is a desirable condition because it means you get to learn something.

Fair enough. I maybe should have put language in scare quotes. :)

In 1999, front end templates were written in an internally developed macro language named catsubst and served by a C (maybe C++?) application named Obidos. Later (starting in 2003-ish), front end code was written in Perl (Mason) and served by another application named Gurupa. The transition to Gurupa was very long and arduous. I've no idea how the site works now.

I participated in the drafting of these tenets along with several others. Many years later, I'm pleased by how much I still like them.

I'm like this, but when I have too much caffeine I notice that it's harder to turn the monologue off. It becomes a little shouty in fact. Brains are weird.

You've got it more or less. The way I say it is that bad ideas can't hide in writing. You can fool yourself and others with a powerpoint or a spoken argument. But clear writing demands clear thinking. Poorly constructed arguments are (usually) obvious as such when put into writing.

CLR

Starry Messenger - Galileo

Very fun and readable. He's so excited to tell the world about what he's learned.

In practice I find prophet far superior. Prophet can deal deftly with the kind of problems that show up in real-world data like missing values and radical changes in trend from shocks to the system you're modeling.

For textbook problems like forecasting electricity demand, sARIMA works just fine, but you'll struggle forecasting anything more complex. This is not to say that it's impossible, but it will require far more expertise.