Reno - 6:23 pm on Feb 5, 2011 (gmt 0)

In search quality in particular, once you've demonstrated that you can do useful stuff on your own, you're pretty much free to work on whatever you think is important.

Does that mean "work on AND implement"? if so, it explains a LOT about the erratic behavior we see in Google these days. Taken literally, it could mean dozens of employees are throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. No wonder I feel like it's a futile effort trying to figure it all out. If an employee reaches the point in the hierarchy where they can work on their own, and they can willy-nilly insert that "useful" work into the algo, then there's no rhyme or reason any more, and without a core logic, even following all the rules won't matter, because those rules can change daily on an employee by employee basis. Personally, I find this worrisome, to say the least.

....................