Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors • Hacker News Board

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#81

Post by lgleason » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 10:35 PM UTC

itsaidpens wrote: post #62

mancerayder wrote: post #58

Google seems to be falling flat on its face growth-wise. Its ad revenue is down, its Pixel 3 platform fell completely flat, it shuttered Google + and had a security breach? How can you have a large scale security breach with a brutal tech hiring process, sky high salaries and a whitepaper-producing workforce? Hell, when you interview at much smaller firms, the tech groups copycat the Google hiring techniques, that's…

Complete aside: all of my friends/acquaintances who work for Google (and in full disclosure, they're generally not engineers) unequivocally agree that Google could fire 30% of their workforce with no disruption in service/revenue. They've become bloated.

I've spoken with people who are connected much higher up and the truth is that they could get rid of 70% plus and still bring in the same profit. The unsaid thing is that most profit is still from search ads, the rest of the spending makes it look, to Wall Street, like they have something beyond search ads and are not a one trick pony. So far they really are not and have become very bloated and inefficient, but Wall Street has been rewarding this behavior with a higher stock price....though the better thing may have been for them to just hoard the cash....especially if none of the other bets ever pan out. Some of this is the curse of being a public company and the skewed incentives.

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#82

Post by philsnow » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 10:36 PM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #79

paganel wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Page had the right idea, because if you look nowadays at people under 30 for them the Internet is represented by social networks, be it Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or even Snapchat, the internet/web represented by the browser and by visiting different websites via Google is no longer that important. I think Page realized that if Google doesn't hop on the social train they'll end up looking from the outside…

None of G+ was Page's idea. There was a product manager (who left for facebook!) who did the big pitch deck that got it rolling. Then they put Vic Gundotra in charge and gave him carte blanche to modify multiple products. I agree that was the wrong person for the job. But you can't even imagine the amount of groupthink and ego that Vic surrounded himself with. I don't think it was super-obvious 10 years ago, but soci…

The "trouble" with Orkut was the large majority of those users were outside the United States. Brazil and later India made up the majority.

Those eyeballs weren't worth as much to advertisers, and I don't think Google valued the product highly because of it.

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#83

Post by FartyMcFarter » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 10:40 PM UTC

Good riddance. Among other problems, Schmidt was one of the organizers of the "no poaching" scandals:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt#Role_in_illegal...

He also wrote this, to make it clear that he knew he was doing wrong: [let's share this with competitors] "verbally, since I don't want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later?"

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#84

Post by tdeck » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 10:41 PM UTC

itsaidpens wrote: post #62

mancerayder wrote: post #58

Google seems to be falling flat on its face growth-wise. Its ad revenue is down, its Pixel 3 platform fell completely flat, it shuttered Google + and had a security breach? How can you have a large scale security breach with a brutal tech hiring process, sky high salaries and a whitepaper-producing workforce? Hell, when you interview at much smaller firms, the tech groups copycat the Google hiring techniques, that's…

Complete aside: all of my friends/acquaintances who work for Google (and in full disclosure, they're generally not engineers) unequivocally agree that Google could fire 30% of their workforce with no disruption in service/revenue. They've become bloated.

Whether or not Google is effectively innovative is one thing, but statements like this don't offer much insight. Sure, Google can cut all the investment in R&D and keep the lights on, but that strategy isn't going to do much for the long-term future of the company.

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#85

Post by repsilat » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 10:41 PM UTC

mancerayder wrote: post #58

Google seems to be falling flat on its face growth-wise. Its ad revenue is down, its Pixel 3 platform fell completely flat, it shuttered Google + and had a security breach? How can you have a large scale security breach with a brutal tech hiring process, sky high salaries and a whitepaper-producing workforce? Hell, when you interview at much smaller firms, the tech groups copycat the Google hiring techniques, that's…

> a security breach

Wasn't it a security vulnerability? IIRC they were returning data they shouldn't have for some calls, but didn't have conclusive evidence that anyone had ever made those calls because of log rotation policies. (Maybe I misremembered, or maybe you're talking about a different issue?)

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#86

Post by ssambros » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #79

paganel wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Page had the right idea, because if you look nowadays at people under 30 for them the Internet is represented by social networks, be it Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or even Snapchat, the internet/web represented by the browser and by visiting different websites via Google is no longer that important. I think Page realized that if Google doesn't hop on the social train they'll end up looking from the outside…

None of G+ was Page's idea. There was a product manager (who left for facebook!) who did the big pitch deck that got it rolling. Then they put Vic Gundotra in charge and gave him carte blanche to modify multiple products. I agree that was the wrong person for the job. But you can't even imagine the amount of groupthink and ego that Vic surrounded himself with. I don't think it was super-obvious 10 years ago, but soci…

> Google could have made a much less obnoxious social network

Even today, I think YouTube has a great potential for becoming a better social network, than G+ ever was.

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#87

Post by UncleMeat » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 10:43 PM UTC

mrb wrote: post #74

manigandham wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cryptoverse What exactly is this and what business is doing well in it?

Cryptocurrencies. For example Coinbase is doing well—raised $300M on a $8B valuation: http://fortune.com/2018/10/30/coinbase-series-e-funding/

Google's market cap is 850B. The existence of some very successful companies in crypto does not mean that Google made a mistake by not jumping on that train.

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#88

Post by martin_henk » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 10:44 PM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #79

paganel wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Page had the right idea, because if you look nowadays at people under 30 for them the Internet is represented by social networks, be it Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or even Snapchat, the internet/web represented by the browser and by visiting different websites via Google is no longer that important. I think Page realized that if Google doesn't hop on the social train they'll end up looking from the outside…

None of G+ was Page's idea. There was a product manager (who left for facebook!) who did the big pitch deck that got it rolling. Then they put Vic Gundotra in charge and gave him carte blanche to modify multiple products. I agree that was the wrong person for the job. But you can't even imagine the amount of groupthink and ego that Vic surrounded himself with. I don't think it was super-obvious 10 years ago, but soci…

Very interesting. Social media today is a much more refined offering than google+. Google feels like microsoft nowadays. It’s something for adults to get things done. Your personal stuff happens on DM’s, instagram, snapchat, tiktok... much more so for young people. Therefore keeping search and social separated was a good thing.

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#89

Post by CydeWeys » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 10:44 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #32

pcwalton wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google also grew to dominate the browser market during 2011-2015.

Through Chrome, which was started internally in 2006 and launched externally in 2008. Though that also was one of those projects where Larry sponsored a couple of talented engineers behind Eric's back and they put out something awesome.

Behind Eric's back? A company that has tens of thousands of employees and you think the co-founder would have to hide a small initial implementation of a project he believed in?

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#90

Post by UncleMeat » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 10:45 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #59

patejam wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused by all the assumptions in this thread, including 1. That Google didn't research crypto internally and purposely decide not to pursue it. 2. That crypto is worth staking Google's time, energy, and ego on. 3. That crypto involvement is a direct reason a company is or is not innovative.

Hard lesson learned from a couple of research projects within Google and then again from my first couple years as an entrepreneur: Internal research is useless. The only way to know whether a new idea will work is to try it: put some minimal form of it in front of people and see if they actually get use it. People are complex; sometimes they do things that all rational thought says they shouldn't (buying Bitcoin and…

> The only way to know whether a new idea will work is to try it: put some minimal form of it in front of people and see if they actually get use it.

And then get skewered left and right for shutting down products? You can't have it both ways.