Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why I left Google to join Grab

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 188 posts

Re: Why I left Google to join Grab

#111

Post by jacksmith21006 »

reacweb wrote: post #37

I think that Google has a very well thought long term strategy. The sole aim of Google is AI, strong AI. I would like to say like Terminator, Person of Interest or transhumanism, but each time I lose many karma points. One of their main scope was analyzing web pages. By "accident", this has created a lucrative business (search engine). Google's aim is to keep the money flowing to pay their AI research. For research,…

Totally agree. It can be summed up with something Larry Page said very early with Google.

He was asked about using AI to make search better and he responded that they are using search to make AI better.

It is the ultimate long game with many steps on getting there that might not make sense in issolation but all go together.

Re: Why I left Google to join Grab

#112

Post by AzzieElbab »

sgift wrote: post #55

> When this idea inevitably takes off, people are going to be able to order take-out from their neighbors, from anyone in the city who wants to cook their family recipe. It will change cuisine forever. I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. As if such things as hygiene regulations didn't exist and you can just open a restaurant by hanging a sign out and telling someone to deliver whatever you just produced in y…

You must have never visited a kitchen of a small restaurant if you honestly think hygiene regulations are something real and enforceable

Re: Why I left Google to join Grab

#113

Post by pavel_lishin »

southphillyman wrote: post #101
sgift wrote: post #55

> When this idea inevitably takes off, people are going to be able to order take-out from their neighbors, from anyone in the city who wants to cook their family recipe. It will change cuisine forever. I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. As if such things as hygiene regulations didn't exist and you can just open a restaurant by hanging a sign out and telling someone to deliver whatever you just produced in y…

I made a similar argument to a friend while eating at a small street food vendor in Bangkok a couple of months ago. I was turned off by the flies and the fact I was a couple of feet from a dirty alley. My friend, who likely grew up eating in similar shops in Nigeria, pointed out I was looking at it from a very Western pov. He argued that these kind of establishments were safe to eat at because their entire livelihood…

Does the word-of-mouth reputation system still work if you're using a phone app to order food from someone who isn't necessarily local? Now, everyone's competing against everyone in a much larger geographical area. Sure, you can go by reviews, but now you've got a negative-comment war.

Re: Why I left Google to join Grab

#114

Post by gamblor956 »

AzzieElbab wrote: post #112
sgift wrote: post #55

> When this idea inevitably takes off, people are going to be able to order take-out from their neighbors, from anyone in the city who wants to cook their family recipe. It will change cuisine forever. I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. As if such things as hygiene regulations didn't exist and you can just open a restaurant by hanging a sign out and telling someone to deliver whatever you just produced in y…

You must have never visited a kitchen of a small restaurant if you honestly think hygiene regulations are something real and enforceable

Hygiene regulations don't require visible cleanliness (i.e., clean dishes and sparkling floors), they require hygienic practices and workplaces. The big things are storing and cooking food properly, making sure that employees clean themselves and the kitchen in a proper manner, and controlling pests like rats and roaches (which is 90% accomplished by the first two). Everything beyond that is negotiable.

LA County, for example, is very strict with enforcing these rules for kitchens, and publishes monthly lists of restaurants that have been shut down for violations.

Re: Why I left Google to join Grab

#115

Post by gamblor956 »

zeveb wrote: post #99
altern8tif wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish more people would work on ideas that would impact the poorer half of the human race.

I imagine that getting better food options to millions of people and enabling tens of thousands to start businesses does impact the poorer half of mankind positively. We've seen for decades that the typical Western approach of throwing money at the elites of a poor country really doesn't help improve life for the impoverished; it's when we create opportunities for them that their lives become measurably better. Contr…

It will be extremely difficult to replicate European prosperity without replicating the colonial system that made it possible and is largely responsible for the state of the developing world today.

Re: Why I left Google to join Grab

#116

Post by okr »

willempienaar wrote: post #89
okr wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can tell your friends, that customers also like to be tracked/found, temporarily (if needed) Phoning is not really helpful, i dont understand them, they dont understand me. SMS the driver also does not work, as i usually do not buy SMS budget. And the notes are ignored by drivers! Maybe even a little doodle to show them how to drive best to the location on the last mile, could be useful. :)

Good point. I work on the Data Science team, but I will pass along your comment and suggestion to the relevant product team.

Do i see results of Data Science in the App? Never been on the driver side. Like, do you distribute drivers to busy places and things like that? Do you also block drivers in certain areas? What are driver's common problems? OOh, so many questions. Dont you want to write a blog post as well? :-)

Re: Why I left Google to join Grab

#117

Post by smacktoward »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #107
distances wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The burden to track company behaviour shouldn't be on customers. The normal way to counter this is via unions.

It sounds like unions are the new Rust on Hacker News.

in both cases, it's unsurprising that when the status quo so obviously sucks as badly as it does that people go looking for alternatives.

Re: Why I left Google to join Grab

#118

Post by WisNorCan »

Steve makes a good point that the largest technology companies have stopped (boldly) innovating. Obviously, all the engineers at the companies still go to work and write code. But with 10x the resources they seem to be outputting 1/10th the innovation.

What are the bold innovations to come out of Facebook, Google, Microsoft over the past decade or so that haven't been acquisitions? With Facebook, you have a bunch of work on better targeting ads. Oculus and Instagram are both acquisitions.

Amazon is the exception. With Amazon, you have AWS, Alexa, Fresh/Prime Now, while also breaking into new geographies and verticals etc.

Re: Why I left Google to join Grab

#119

Post by gamblor956 »

shalmanese wrote: post #22
thisisit wrote: post #9

It's a delightful read. I am no fan of Google but people do realize that once a company becomes big innovation has huge costs involved, more people means lesser room for growth and hence the politics, as well as some arrogance of being a large company. That said I kind of disagree with this: Restaurants and food trucks are both about to be obliterated by Peach and Uber Eats. The biggest cost to a restaurant was their…

Right now, what we have are the first generation of delivery restaurants which is basically "restaurants, only it's delivery". We won't start seeing the real revolution until we start seeing formats built natively around the assumptions of delivery. The second generation of "delivery, only it happens to be restaurants" format is going to look radically different from what we have today. For example, right now, restau…

What you describe already exists. They're called shared kitchens, and they've been in major US cities like NY, LA, and Chicago for decades, even before computers.

It really helps to know something about an industry before you claim that some random app is going to completely revolutionize said industry.

Re: Why I left Google to join Grab

#120

Post by gamblor956 »

shalmanese wrote: post #38
thisisit wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree on how it will lead to innovations on the restaurant side. Sharing infrastructure and bringing down costs. The question really is on the app side - today they might be in making say $X from 3-4 places serving steamed rice. But tomorrow as you pointed out this might reduce down to $x/3 because all 3-4 can band together to pay for the same delivery. It will affect the food delivery app's bottom line.…

By turning from a service to a platform. Traditionally, companies that have a direct relationship with the customer are able to derive revenue by auctioning off that access to the highest bidder. What we've seen across a range of creative industries is a transformation of incentives from those who are able to run the best business into those who are able to make the best product. Take Youtube for example. Prior to Yo…

Any app that manages to insert itself into the middle of that transaction is going to redefine the food industry. That's why everyone is so hot for delivery right now. Even though the short term game has horrible unit economics, delivery is a natural choke point by which you can own the customer relationship.

Which is precisely why no restaurant worth its salt limits itself to a single delivery app...Delivery is an add-on value for restaurants. People who assume it's just about the food fundamentally misunderstand why people go to restaurants in the first place.

Post reply on HN