Nathan Weinberg
points to a
summary of Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt’s recent visit to AOL, where a
difference between how each company defines "programmers" came up. Are
programmers more about technology or programming content, asked AOL senior vice
president Sree Kotay:
At AOL, we tend to have Programmers that offer our members a very managed
experience that comforts them, whereas at Google, its much more automation and
technology oriented – can you comment on this philosophy difference?
Eric Schmidt reportedly replied to that with the following statement;
"When you say Programmer and we say Programmer, we mean very different
things… Does that answer the question?"
For many, Eric’s reply perhaps did not answer the question. Kotay adds in
comments after his original post:
I think he was pointing out, very succinctly, that the cultural values of
our companies – reflected in the language we use in our everyday worklives –
results in very different (no particular judgment implied) value propositions
that we deliver to our partners and customers.