About this episode
Supported by Our Partners • WorkOS — The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. • Graphite — The AI developer productivity platform. • Formation — Level up your career and compensation with Formation. — In today’s episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I am joined by a senior software engineer and cartoonist, Manu Cornet. Manu spent over a decade at Google , doing both backend and frontend development. He also spent a year and a half at Twitter before Elon Musk purchased it and rebranded it to X . But what Manu is most known for are his hilarious internet comics about the tech world, including his famous org chart comic from 2011 about Facebook , Apple , Amazon , and Microsoft . In today’s conversation, we explore many of his comics, discuss the meaning behind them, and talk about the following topics: • The viral org chart comic that captured the structure of Big Tech companies • Why Google is notorious for confusing product names • The comic that ended up on every door at Google • How Google’s 20% time fostered innovation—and what projects came from it • How one of Manu’s comics predicted Google Stadia’s failure—and the reasons behind it • The value of connecting to users directly • Twitter’s climate before and after Elon Musk’s acquisition and the mass layoffs that followed • And more! — Timestamps (00:00) Intro (02:01) Manu’s org structure comic (07:10) Manu’s “Who Sues Who” comic (09:15) Google vs. Amazon comic (14:10) Confusing names at Google (20:00) Different approaches to sharing information within companies (22:20) The two ways of doing things at Google (25:15) Manu’s code reviews comic (27:45) The comic that was printed on every single door of Google (30:55) An explanation of 20% at Google (36:00) Gmail Labs and Google Stadia (41:36) Manu’s time at Twitter and the threat of Elon Musk buying (47:07) How Manu helped Gergely with a bug on Twitter (49:05) Musk’s acquirement of Twitter and the resulting layoffs (59:00) Manu’s comic about his disillusionment with Twitter and Google (1:02:37) Rapid fire round — The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode: • How Manu creates comics • Consolidating technologies • Is Big Tech becoming more cutthroat? — See the transcript and other references from the episode at https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/podcast — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@pragmaticengineer.com. Get full access to The Pragmatic Engineer at newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/subscribe