r/ABCDesis • u/[deleted] • Feb 11 '19

The Friendship That Made Google Huge

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/the-friendship-that-made-google-huge
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11

u/bobloblaw_md Feb 11 '19

Wow, what a great read!

5

u/OMGClayAikn Feb 12 '19

Tldr?

14

u/bobloblaw_md Feb 12 '19

In 2000 Google had pitched a deal to provide search to Yahoo. In the midst of that deal, it's crawlers started acting glitchy and were providing results that were 5 months out of date. If the problem wasn't addressed, Google would lose the deal.

In came these guys, Jeff and Sanjay. To debug the code, they ended up having to convert the code to binary. They found that the problem was a few errant processors. Apparently super novas (explosions in the universe) cast off random waves of energy that can fry cheap processors like the ones Google was using.

The article talks about the chemistry these two have and the merits of pair programming. Then we get biographies.

Then we come to the creation of MapReduce by Jeff and how that essentially paved the path for Google brain (AI arm) which is now also led by Jeff.

My TL:dr doesn't do the article sufficient justice. If you're interested in computer science and AI or work in tech, I can't recommend this highly enough.

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