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

Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 366 posts

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

#191

Post by lallysingh »

inapis wrote: post #186
rattlesnakedave wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do they have a monopoly on? The claim that Google, or any FAANG company is a monopoly is absurd. A monopoly is the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service. Google definitionally doesn’t have that, because competitors exist.

While definitely not a monopoly under the contemporary definition, I do not find it hard to believe that these companies are having an outsized influence on markets, society and politics. They end up having monopolistic effects without actually being a monopoly. Case in point, it’s extremely hard to get discovered on internet without paying google/Facebook. Even if you are not running ads, google can wipe out a signi…

There's no law against that, and we (USA) try to be a country of law.

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

#192

Post by lallysingh »

behnamoh wrote: post #11

Somehow it's strange seeing these tech giants being handed over to a new generation. Microsoft has long been associated with Gates and Balmer, Steve's DNA still runs in Apple, and Google still reminds me of Schmidt. The newer generation of executives and board directors in these companies has a very difficult task to do: stick to the past or redefine the company for the future.

Culture is ultimately defined by the promotion and bonus criteria.

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

#193

Post by istjohn »

rattlesnakedave wrote: post #102
meh206 wrote: post #72

Google is an internet monopoly with data and information. I think the only reason they've come this far without being exposed as such was cooperating with the government (learning from Microsoft's mistakes when they were exposed)

What do they have a monopoly on? The claim that Google, or any FAANG company is a monopoly is absurd. A monopoly is the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service. Google definitionally doesn’t have that, because competitors exist.

A company can have competition and still have a monopoly.

>> Undertakings possessing market share that is lower than 100% but over 90% had also been found dominant, for example, Microsoft v Commission case.[78] In the AKZO v Commission case,[79] the undertaking is presumed to be dominant if it has a market share of 50%. There are also findings of dominance that are below a market share of 50%, for instance, United Brands v Commission,[74] it only possessed a market share of 40% to 45% and still to be found dominant with other factors. The lowest yet market share of a company considered "dominant" in the EU was 39.7%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly

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

#194

Post by cloudwalking »

krm01 wrote: post #14

Does anyone inside Google care to share how Eric is perceived among fellow engineers?. From the outside, it seems many of the great innovations came when he wS CEO and Larry + Sergey were building the company culture.

Eric was great. I always watched his town hall live streams. He's incredibly charismatic and always offered a lot of detail about his thinking.

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

#195

Post by UncleMeat »

yeahitslikethat wrote: post #150
ehsankia wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ad revenue is growing slower than in the past. It's also a second degree derivative, which is inherently noisy. A single data point isn't enough to show a trend. > Security is stupendously hard. It also wasn't a breach. Breach implies it was exploited. They actually found the bug and fixed it, and there was as far as they could there no signs that it was abused. Google has some of the best security security researc…

> there was as far as they could there no signs that it was abused As would be expected from the class of hackers that would be able to exploit it.

It was an unintentionally exposed API. You didn't need to be an expert.

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

#196

Post by robotresearcher »

pishpash wrote: post #50
trophycase wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is quite amazing how they have almost complete browser dominance and video content creation/hosting dominance as well as search dominance but are unable to come up with even a simple in browser tipping system to hedge against the downfall of their almost entirely ad based revenue.

Corporations are not meant to disrupt themselves. It just doesn't happen.

Netflix did.

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

#197

Post by compiler-guy »

pishpash wrote: post #50
trophycase wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is quite amazing how they have almost complete browser dominance and video content creation/hosting dominance as well as search dominance but are unable to come up with even a simple in browser tipping system to hedge against the downfall of their almost entirely ad based revenue.

Corporations are not meant to disrupt themselves. It just doesn't happen.

Apple disrupted itself at least twice.

macOS are the Apple II series iPhone clobbered the iPod.

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

#198

Post by inapis »

lallysingh wrote: post #191
inapis wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While definitely not a monopoly under the contemporary definition, I do not find it hard to believe that these companies are having an outsized influence on markets, society and politics. They end up having monopolistic effects without actually being a monopoly. Case in point, it’s extremely hard to get discovered on internet without paying google/Facebook. Even if you are not running ads, google can wipe out a signi…

There's no law against that, and we (USA) try to be a country of law.

I am not saying nor implying that what the Big 4-5 are doing is illegal. I'm merely noting that these companies have an outsized influence and the ability to force the markets to behave in specific ways, not all of which are beneficial to society.

There doesn't have to be a law, for an individual or organisation, to notice and opine that these companies DO have an impact which would be very hard to achieve in free and fair markets. Law usually follows disruptive innovation and capitalism and capitalists generally try to run circles around policy making.

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

#199

Post by PorterDuff »

vl wrote: post #53
neves wrote: post #41

I'm starting to read "When Google Met WikiLeaks" by Assange. In this book Schmidt is the villain. It will be nice to match Assange's point of view with all the eulogies that we will read about Schmidt now.

Schmidt's involvement with US's politics is strange, especially for the business leader: he met with Assange, he went to North Korea. There was a hilarious moment at the company meeting when rank-and-file learned from the news that Eric and Larry met with Trump. Somebody demanded explanation, as if it is something strange that business leaders meet with the president. Sundar mumbled something like "yes, I didn't know…

It's probably strange more due to his strong relationship with Obama and those campaigns. It's exactly the sort of thing you don't want to see in that sort of dominant company.

He doesn't come off very well in "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" either.

edit: as guessed, I got down voted for an Obama reference. Here's a quote from the book:

"First, Google demonstrated that the same predictive knowledge derived from behavioral surplus that had made the surveillance capitalists wealthy could also help candidates win elections. To make the point, Google was ready to apply its magic to the red-hot core of twenty-first-century campaigning, beginning with the 2008 Obama presidential campaign. Schmidt had a leading role in organizing teams and guiding the implementation of cutting-edge data strategies that would eclipse the traditional political arts with the science of behavioral prediction"

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

#200

Post by telchar »

jeffdavis wrote: post #172
basetop wrote: post #160

Eric Schmidt was the anti-privacy leader who dismissed privacy concerns. "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmid... Keep in mind this is the same guy who blackballed CNET reporters for finding personal information on him through google search. https://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology…

Privacy is usually not about things you don't want anyone to know. It's about things you don't want everyone to know.

That's the most succinct explanation of privacy I've seen. I'm going to have to crib that line.
Post reply on HN