Comments on: Google was not a normal place https://www.isegoria.net/2018/07/google-was-not-a-normal-place/ From the ancient Greek for equality in freedom of speech; an eclectic mix of thoughts, large and small Wed, 03 Jun 2026 14:29:25 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.6.1 By: Graham https://www.isegoria.net/2018/07/google-was-not-a-normal-place/comment-page-1/#comment-2639517 Graham Tue, 24 Jul 2018 16:16:32 +0000 http://www.isegoria.net/?p=43699#comment-2639517 Or as Shakespeare’s Brutus would say,

“There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.”

]]> By: Graham https://www.isegoria.net/2018/07/google-was-not-a-normal-place/comment-page-1/#comment-2639516 Graham Tue, 24 Jul 2018 15:59:34 +0000 http://www.isegoria.net/?p=43699#comment-2639516 Well, I am allowing that the ability to recognize and seize the opportunities provided by luck/fortune is itself a talent, and so is the ability to seize such an opportunity and extend its scope into bigger opportunity. indeed, those might be two separate talents, the latter even rarer than the former.

Sheer hucksterism is a talent, too.

Many of us are so lacking in all three of these areas that Fortune could come up and kick us in the gonads and we wouldn’t recognize it. We might double over, sure, but not also seize the chance being offered.

So some props are due to those who can and do, even if they bring literally nothing else to the table. If they do bring something else and seize the chance to apply it, then that’s worth even more, of course.

]]> By: Kirk https://www.isegoria.net/2018/07/google-was-not-a-normal-place/comment-page-1/#comment-2639403 Kirk Mon, 23 Jul 2018 17:17:31 +0000 http://www.isegoria.net/?p=43699#comment-2639403 Talent? No, outrageously good luck. Some of which they made, some of which was granted by arrogant and incompetent competitors, but most of which came from sheer grace of Dame Fortune. Watch what happens when Google can no longer rely on mere luck to survive.

]]> By: Graham https://www.isegoria.net/2018/07/google-was-not-a-normal-place/comment-page-1/#comment-2639398 Graham Mon, 23 Jul 2018 16:31:47 +0000 http://www.isegoria.net/?p=43699#comment-2639398 Just goes to show you it isn’t all millennials. Page and Brin are my generation [X], though their origins and upbringings weren’t exactly near the baseline.

They seem to have many of the millennial traits in embryo, although a young boomer’s insouciant attitude to sexual behavior. A combination befitting the transitional generation, I suppose.

I loved that militant assumption that wearing business attire is phony and that frat house attitude to meetings. Lucky they had talent, I guess.

]]> By: Matt https://www.isegoria.net/2018/07/google-was-not-a-normal-place/comment-page-1/#comment-2639384 Matt Mon, 23 Jul 2018 14:35:31 +0000 http://www.isegoria.net/?p=43699#comment-2639384 Well thank god they fired James Damore and cleared up all the sexism problems in that company.

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