Consistency, Survivability, Speed: Pick Two

Nov 20, 2008 13:13


Legal Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are mine only and do not necessarily reflect the views of Google.
I spent my first two years at Google working on Google Checkout, and I walked away with two great lessons. One was the lesson I learned from Pat Helland on building scalable systems. The other was admitting a ( Read more... )

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ralph_the_gnome November 21 2008, 22:03:10 UTC
In professional restaurants there is a similar saying. Good, Fast, Cheap. Pick two. Good + Cheap = Pot Roast, more soul food and home cooking, tasty but a slow cooker. Good + Fast = Rare Filet Mignon, tasty but expensive, good restaurant food. Fast + Cheap = McDonalds. Most Americans choose that last one.

Also, in law school we had a saying that I think applies to Georgia Tech. Sleep, Social Life, Good Grades. Choose Two.

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pigmassacre November 24 2008, 07:37:18 UTC
The first version of good/fast/cheap I heard referred to software engineering project management. You can have the software turn out really good, and be done quickly too, if you have expensive enough engineers coding it. And so on.

This was a nice read, David. Thanks!

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