Sundar Pichai unveiled Simplicity Sprint at Google's latest all-hands conference.

To boost employee efficiency.

Not surprising. Few envisioned Google declaring a productivity drive.

Sunder Pichai's speech:

“There are real concerns that our productivity as a whole is not where it needs to be for the head count we have. Help me create a culture that is more mission-focused, more focused on our products, more customer focused. We should think about how we can minimize distractions and really raise the bar on both product excellence and productivity.”

The primary driver driving Google's efficiency push is:

Google's efficiency push follows 13% quarterly revenue increase. Last year in the same quarter, it was 62%.

Market newcomers may argue that the previous year's figure was fuelled by post-Covid reopening and growing consumer spending. Investors aren't convinced. A promising company like Google can't afford to drop so quickly.

Google’s quarterly revenue growth stood at 13%, against 62% in last year same quarter.

Google isn't alone. In my recent essay regarding 2025 programmers, I warned about the economic downturn's effects on FAAMG's workforce. Facebook had suspended hiring, and Microsoft had promised hefty bonuses for loyal staff.

In the same article, I predicted Google's troubles. Online advertising, especially the way Google and Facebook sell it using user data, is over.

FAAMG and 2nd rung IT companies could be the first to fall without Post-COVID revival and uncertain global geopolitics.

Google has hardly ever discussed effectiveness:

Apparently openly.

Amazon treats its employees like robots, even in software positions. It has significant turnover and a terrible reputation as a result. Because of this, it rarely loses money due to staff productivity.

Amazon trumps Google. In reality, it treats its employees poorly.

Google was the founding father of the modern-day open culture.

Larry and Sergey Google founded the IT industry's Open Culture. Silicon Valley called Google's internal democracy and transparency near anarchy. Management rarely slammed decisions on employees. Surveys and internal polls ensured everyone knew the company's direction and had a vote.

20% project allotment (weekly free time to build own project) was Google's open-secret innovation component.

After Larry and Sergey's exit in 2019, this is Google's first profitability hurdle. Only Google insiders can answer these questions.

• Would Google's investors compel the company's management to adopt an Amazon-style culture where the developers are treated like circus performers?

• If so, would Google follow suit?

• If so, how does Google go about doing it?

Before discussing Google's likely plan, let's examine programming productivity.

What determines a programmer's productivity is simple:

How would we answer Google's questions?

As a programmer, I'm more concerned about Simplicity Sprint's aftermath than its economic catalysts.

Large organizations don't care much about quarterly and annual productivity metrics. They have 10-year product-launch plans. If something seems horrible today, it's likely due to someone's lousy judgment 5 years ago who is no longer in the blame game.

Deconstruct our main question.

• How exactly do you change the culture of the firm so that productivity increases?

• How can you accomplish that without affecting your capacity to profit? There are countless ways to increase output without decreasing profit.

• How can you accomplish this with little to no effect on employee motivation? (While not all employers care about it, in this case we are discussing the father of the open company culture.)

• How do you do it for a 10-developer IT firm that is losing money versus a 1,70,000-developer organization with a trillion-dollar valuation?

When implementing a large-scale organizational change, success must be carefully measured.

The fastest way to do something is to do it right, no matter how long it takes.

You require clearly-defined group/team/role segregation and solid pass/fail matrices to:

• You can give performers rewards.

• Ones that are average can be inspired to improve

• Underachievers may receive assistance or, in the worst-case scenario, rehabilitation

As a 20-year programmer, I associate productivity with greatness.

Doing something well, no matter how long it takes, is the fastest way to do it.

Let's discuss a programmer's productivity.

Why productivity is a strange term in programming:

Productivity is work per unit of time.

Money=time This is an economic proverb. More hours worked, more pay. Longer projects cost more.

As a buyer, you desire a quick supply. As a business owner, you want employees who perform at full capacity, creating more products to transport and boosting your profits.

All economic matrices encourage production because of our obsession with it. Productivity is the only organic way a nation may increase its GDP.

Time is money — is not just a proverb, but an economical fact.

Applying the same productivity theory to programming gets problematic. An automating computer. Its capacity depends on the software its master writes.

Today, a sophisticated program can process a billion records in a few hours. Creating one takes a competent coder and the necessary infrastructure. Learning, designing, coding, testing, and iterations take time.

Programming productivity isn't linear, unlike manufacturing and maintenance.

Average programmers produce code every day yet miss deadlines. Expert programmers go days without coding. End of sprint, they often surprise themselves by delivering fully working solutions.

Reversing the programming duties has no effect. Experts aren't needed for productivity.

These patterns remind me of an XKCD comic.

Programming productivity depends on two factors:

• The capacity of the programmer and his or her command of the principles of computer science

• His or her productive bursts, how often they occur, and how long they last as they engineer the answer

At some point, productivity measurement becomes Schrödinger’s cat.

Product companies measure productivity using use cases, classes, functions, or LOCs (lines of code). In days of data-rich source control systems, programmers' merge requests and/or commits are the most preferred yardstick. Companies assess productivity by tickets closed.

Every organization eventually has trouble measuring productivity. Finer measurements create more chaos. Every measure compares apples to oranges (or worse, apples with aircraft.) On top of the measuring overhead, the endeavor causes tremendous and unnecessary stress on teams, lowering their productivity and defeating its purpose.

Macro productivity measurements make sense. Amazon's factory-era management has done it, but at great cost.

Google can pull it off if it wants to.

What Google meant in reality when it said that employee productivity has decreased:

When Google considers its employees unproductive, it doesn't mean they don't complete enough work in the allotted period.

They can't multiply their work's influence over time.

• Programmers who produce excellent modules or products are unsure on how to use them.

• The best data scientists are unable to add the proper parameters in their models.

• Despite having a great product backlog, managers struggle to recruit resources with the necessary skills.

• Product designers who frequently develop and A/B test newer designs are unaware of why measures are inaccurate or whether they have already reached the saturation point.

• Most ignorant: All of the aforementioned positions are aware of what to do with their deliverables, but neither their supervisors nor Google itself have given them sufficient authority.

So, Google employees aren't productive.

How to fix it?

• Business analysis: White suits introducing novel items can interact with customers from all regions. Track analytics events proactively, especially the infrequent ones.

• SOLID, DRY, TEST, and AUTOMATION: Do less + reuse. Use boilerplate code creation. If something already exists, don't implement it yourself.

• Build features-building capabilities: N features are created by average programmers in N hours. An endless number of features can be built by average programmers thanks to the fact that expert programmers can produce 1 capability in N hours.

• Work on projects that will have a positive impact: Use the same algorithm to search for images on YouTube rather than the Mars surface.

• Avoid tasks that can only be measured in terms of time linearity at all costs (if a task can be completed in N minutes, then M copies of the same task would cost M*N minutes).

In conclusion:

Software development isn't linear. Why should the makers be measured?

Notation for The Big O

I'm discussing a new way to quantify programmer productivity. (It applies to other professions, but that's another subject)

The Big O notation expresses the paradigm (the algorithmic performance concept programmers rot to ace their Google interview)

Google (or any large corporation) can do this.

1. Sort organizational roles into categories and specify their impact vs. time objectives. A CXO role's time vs. effect function, for instance, has a complexity of O(log N), meaning that if a CEO raises his or her work time by 8x, the result only increases by 3x.

2. Plot the influence of each employee over time using the X and Y axes, respectively.

3. Add a multiplier for Y-axis values to the productivity equation to make business objectives matter. (Example values: Support = 5, Utility = 7, and Innovation = 10).

4. Compare employee scores in comparable categories (developers vs. devs, CXOs vs. CXOs, etc.) and reward or help employees based on whether they are ahead of or behind the pack.

After measuring every employee's inventiveness, it's straightforward to help underachievers and praise achievers.

Example of a Big(O) Category:

If I ran Google (God forbid, its worst days are far off), here's how I'd classify it. You can categorize Google employees whichever you choose.

The Google interview truth:

O(1) < O(log n) < O(n) < O(n log n) < O(n^x) where all logarithmic bases are < n.

O(1): Customer service workers' hours have no impact on firm profitability or customer pleasure.

CXOs Most of their time is spent on travel, strategic meetings, parties, and/or meetings with minimal floor-level influence. They're good at launching new products but bad at pivoting without disaster. Their directions are being followed.

Devops, UX designers, testers Agile projects revolve around deployment. DevOps controls the levers. Their automation secures results in subsequent cycles.

UX/UI Designers must still prototype UI elements despite improved design tools.

All test cases are proportional to use cases/functional units, hence testers' work is O(N).

Architects Their effort improves code quality. Their right/wrong interference affects product quality and rollout decisions even after the design is set.

Core Developers Only core developers can write code and own requirements. When people understand and own their labor, the output improves dramatically. A single character error can spread undetected throughout the SDLC and cost millions.

Core devs introduce/eliminate 1000x bugs, refactoring attempts, and regression. Following our earlier hypothesis.

The fastest way to do something is to do it right, no matter how long it takes.

Conclusion:

Google is at the liberal extreme of the employee-handling spectrum

Microsoft faced an existential crisis after 2000. It didn't choose Amazon's data-driven people management to revitalize itself.

Instead, it entrusted developers. It welcomed emerging technologies and opened up to open source, something it previously opposed.

Google is too lax in its employee-handling practices. With that foundation, it can only follow Amazon, no matter how carefully.

Any attempt to redefine people's measurements will affect the organization emotionally.

The more Google compares apples to apples, the higher its chances for future rebirth.

(And you can have it for free)

Master email to sell anything.

Most novice creators don't know how to begin.

Many use online templates. These are usually fluff-filled and niche-specific.

They're robotic and "salesy."

I've attended 3 courses, read 10 books, and sent 600,000 emails in the past five years.

Outcome?

This *proven* email sequence assures me a month's salary every time I send it.

What you will discover in this article is that:

• A full 6-part email sales cycle

• The essential elements you must incorporate

• placeholders and text-filled images

• (Applies to any niche)

This can be a product introduction, holiday, or welcome sequence. This works for email-saleable products.

Let's start

Email 1: Describe your issue

This email is crucial.

How to? We introduce a subscriber or prospect's problem. Later, we'll frame our offer as the solution.

Label the:

• Problem

• Why it still hasn't been fixed

• Resulting implications for the customer

This puts our new subscriber in solve mode and queues our offer:

Email 2: Amplify the consequences

We're still causing problems.

We've created the problem, but now we must employ emotion and storytelling to make it real. We also want to forecast life if nothing changes.

Let's feel:

• What occurs if it is not resolved?

• Why is it crucial to fix it immediately?

• Tell a tale of a person who was in their position. To emphasize the effects, use a true account of another person (or of yourself):

Email 3: Share a transformation story

Selling stories.

Whether in an email, landing page, article, or video. Humanize stories. They give information meaning.

This is where "issue" becomes "solution."

Let's reveal:

• A tale of success

• A new existence and result

• tools and tactics employed

Start by transforming yourself.

Email 4: Prove with testimonials

No one buys what you say.

Emotionally stirred people buy and act. They believe in the product. They feel that if they buy, it will work.

Social proof shows prospects that your solution will help them.

Add:

• Earlier and Later

• Testimonials

• Reviews

Proof this deal works:

Email 5: Reveal your offer

It's showtime.

This is it. Until now, describing the offer and offering links to a landing page have been sparse in the email pictures.

We've been tense. Gaining steam. Building suspense. Email 5 reveals all.

In this email:

• a description of the deal

• A word about a promise

• recapitulation of the transformation

• and make a reference to the urgency Everything should be spelled out clearly:

Email no. 6: Instill urgency

When there are stakes, humans act.

Creating and marketing with haste raises the stakes. Urgency makes a prospect act because they'll miss out or gain immensely.

Urgency converts. Use:

• short time

• Screening

• Scarcity

Urgency and conversions. Limited-time offers are easy.

TL;DR

Use this proven 6-part email sequence (that turns subscribers into profit):

• Introduce a problem

• Amplify it with emotions

• Share transformation story

• Prove it works with testimonials

• Value-stack and present your offer

• Drive urgency and entice the purchase

When you stop blogging for a few weeks, your views and profits plummet.

Because you're writing fascinating posts for others. Everyone's done ithat…

If I keep writing, the graph should maintain velocity, you could say. If I wrote more, it could rise.

However, entertaining pieces still tend to roller coaster and jump.

this type of writing is like a candle. They burn out and must be replaced. You must continuously light new ones to maintain the illumination.

When you quit writing, your income stops.

A substitute

Instead of producing amusing articles, try solving people's issues. You should answer their search questions.

Here's what happens when you answer their searches.

My website's Google analytics. As a dentist, I answer oral health questions.

This chart vs. Medium is pretty glaring, right?

As of yesterday, it was averaging 15k page views each day.

How much would you make on Medium with 15k daily views?

Evergreen materials

In SEO, this is called evergreen content.

Your content is like a lush, evergreen forest, and by green I mean Benjamins.

Do you have knowledge that you can leverage? Why not help your neighbors and the world?

Answer search inquiries and help others. You'll be well rewarded.

This is better than crafting candle-like content that fizzles out quickly.

Is beauty really ephemeral like how flowers bloom? Nah, I prefer watching forests grow instead (:

Here's how to be clear.

“I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.” — French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and writer Blaise Pascal

Concise.

People want this. We tend to repeat ourselves and use unnecessary words.

Being vague frustrates readers. It focuses their limited attention span on figuring out what you're saying rather than your message.

Edit carefully.

“Examine every word you put on paper. You’ll find a surprising number that don’t serve any purpose.” — American writer, editor, literary critic, and teacher William Zinsser

How do you write succinctly?

Here are three ways to polish your writing.

1. Delete

Your readers will appreciate it if you delete unnecessary words. If a word or phrase is essential, keep it. Don't force it.

Many readers dislike bloated sentences. Ask yourself if cutting a word or phrase will change the meaning or dilute your message.

For example, you could say, “It’s absolutely essential that I attend this meeting today, so I know the final outcome.” It’s better to say, “It’s critical I attend the meeting today, so I know the results.”

Key takeaway

Delete actually, completely, just, full, kind of, really, and totally. Keep the necessary words, cut the rest.

2. Just Do It

Don't tell readers your plans. Your readers don't need to know your plans. Who are you?

Don't say, "I want to highlight our marketing's problems." Our marketing issues are A, B, and C. This cuts 5–7 words per sentence.

Keep your reader's attention on the essentials, not the fluff. What are you doing? You won't lose readers because you get to the point quickly and don't build up.

Key takeaway

Delete words that don't add to your message. Do something, don't tell readers you will.

3. Cut Overlap

You probably repeat yourself unintentionally. You may add redundant sentences when brainstorming. Read aloud to detect overlap.

Remove repetition from your writing. It's important to edit our writing and thinking to avoid repetition.

Key Takeaway

If you're repeating yourself, combine sentences to avoid overlap.

4. Simplify

Write as you would to family or friends. Communicate clearly. Don't use jargon. These words confuse readers.

Readers want specifics, not jargon. Write simply. Done.

Most adults read at 8th-grade level. Jargon and buzzwords make speech fluffy. This confuses readers who want simple language.

Key takeaway

Ensure all audiences can understand you. USA Today's 5th-grade reading level is intentional. They want everyone to understand.

5. Active voice

Subjects perform actions in active voice. When you write in passive voice, the subject receives the action.

For example, “the board of directors decided to vote on the topic” is an active voice, while “a decision to vote on the topic was made by the board of directors” is a passive voice.

Key takeaway

Active voice clarifies sentences. Active voice is simple and concise.

Bringing It All Together

Five tips help you write clearly. Delete, just do it, cut overlap, use simple language, and write in an active voice.

Clear writing is effective. It's okay to occasionally use unnecessary words or phrases. Realizing it is key. Check your writing.

Adding words costs.

Write more concisely. People will appreciate it and read your future articles, emails, and messages. Spending extra time will increase trust and influence.

“Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” — Naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher Henry David Thoreau

Prudence is advised. Be debt-free. Be frugal. Spend less.

This advice sounds nice, but it rarely works.

Most people never learn these two money rules. Both approaches will impact how you see personal finance.

It may safeguard you from inflation or the inability to preserve money.

Let’s dive in.

#1: Making long-term debt your ally

High-interest debt hurts consumers. Many credit cards carry 25% yearly interest (or more), so always pay on time. Otherwise, you’re losing money.

Some low-interest debt is good. Especially when buying an appreciating asset with borrowed money.

Inflation helps you.

If you borrow $800,000 at 3% interest and invest it at 7%, you'll make $32,000 (4%).

As money loses value, fixed payments get cheaper. Your assets' value and cash flow rise.

The never-in-debt crowd doesn't know this. They lose money paying off mortgages and low-interest loans early when they could have bought assets instead.

#2: How To Buy Or Build Assets To Make Inflation Irrelevant

Dozens of studies demonstrate actual wage growth is static; $2.50 in 1964 was equivalent to $22.65 now.

These reports never give solutions unless they're selling gold.

But there is one.

Assets beat inflation.

$100 invested into the S&P 500 would have an inflation-adjusted return of 17,739.30%.

Likewise, you can build assets from nothing.  Doing is easy and quick. The returns can boost your income by 10% or more.

The people who obsess over inflation inadvertently make the problem worse for themselves.  They wait for The Big Crash to buy assets. Or they moan about debt clocks and spending bills instead of seeking a solution.

Conclusion

Being ultra-prudent is like playing golf with a putter to avoid hitting the ball into the water. Sure, you might not slice a drive into the pond. But, you aren’t going to play well either. Or have very much fun.

Money has rules.

Avoiding debt or investment risks will limit your rewards. Long-term, being too cautious hurts your finances.

Disclaimer: This article is for entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice, always do your own research.

The comeback tour continues…

First, he founded a $47 billion co-working company (sorry, a “tech company”).

He established WeLive to disrupt apartment life.

Then he created WeGrow, a school that tossed aside the usual curriculum to feed children's souls and release their potential.

He raised the world’s consciousness.

Then he blew it all up (without raising the world’s consciousness). (He bought a wave pool.)

Adam Neumann's WeWork business burned investors' money. The founder sailed off with unimaginable riches, leaving long-time employees with worthless stocks and the company bleeding money. His track record, which includes a failing baby clothing company, should have stopped investors cold.

Once the dust settled, folks went on. We forgot about the Neumanns! We forgot about the private jets, company retreats, many houses, and WeWork's crippling. In that moment, the prodigal son of entrepreneurship returned, choosing the blockchain as his industry. His homecoming tour began with Flowcarbon, which sold Goddess Nature Tokens to lessen companies' carbon footprints.

Did it work?

Of course not.

Despite receiving $70 million from Andreessen Horowitz's a16z, the project has been halted just two months after its announcement.

This triumph should lower his grade.

Neumann seems to have moved on and has another revolutionary idea for the future of living. Flow (not Flowcarbon) aims to help people live in flow and will launch in 2023. It's the classic Neumann pitch: lofty goals, yogababble, and charisma to attract investors.

It's a winning formula for one investment fund. a16z has backed the project with its largest single check, $350 million. It has a splash page and 3,000 rental units, but is valued at over $1 billion. The blog post praised Neumann for reimagining the office and leading a paradigm-shifting global company.

Flow's mission is to solve the nation's housing crisis. How? Idk. It involves offering community-centric services in apartment properties to the same remote workforce he once wooed with free beer and a pingpong table. Revolutionary! It seems the goal is to apply WeWork's goals of transforming physical spaces and building community to apartments to solve many of today's housing problems.

The elevator pitch probably sounded great.

At least a16z knows it's a near-impossible task, calling it a seismic shift. Marc Andreessen opposes affordable housing in his wealthy Silicon Valley town. As details of the project emerge, more investors will likely throw ethics and morals out the window to go with the flow, throwing money at a man known for burning through it while building toxic companies, hoping he can bank another fantasy valuation before it all crashes.

Insanity is repeating the same action and expecting a different result. Everyone on the Neumann hype train needs to sober up.

Like WeWork, this venture Won’tWork.

Like before, it'll cause a shitstorm.