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Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

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

#261

Post by nostrademons »

plorkyeran wrote: post #253
mrb wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coinbase grew from zero to an $8B valuation in just over 6 years. If that isn't "very successful", what is? ;)

Getting to the point where you don't have to sell off parts of your company to get the cash to sustain your growth. Coinbase is certainly on a nice trajectory, but assuming your goal is to build a real business you haven't succeeded yet if you're still talking about your funding rounds rather than how much money you made last year.

They made a billion dollars in revenue in 2017 and about $520M in 2018, in the midst of a massive bear market. For a company whose primary product is software and doesn't need to worry about cost-of-goods-sold the way that sharing economy companies do. Supposedly they made $450M in profit. They're doing way better than Uber and Lyft are, which continue to lose money even after going public.

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

#262

Post by hatboat »

kermitismyhero wrote: post #120
vkou wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the pointlessness of the butchery of WWI has largely been white-washed, and stripped of all context. Every year, the British commonwealth celebrates the end of that war. Every year, I ask why after the war, the public didn't string up every one of the leaders that was responsible for plunging the world into that pointless, industrial bloodbath. The silence I hear is, sadly, deafening. Nobody cares to a…

Having been raised in a Commonwealth nation (Canada), I've come to realize how dreadful our education system is in teaching about WW1. That war, the events leading to it, and the events resulting from it are absolutely critical to understanding why the world is the way it is today. Everything from the Russian Revolution to the modern-day borders in the middle east to Irish independence to the reason why New York City…

As an Australian, your story rings particularly true - simply replace Vimy Ridge with Gallipoli. We even celebrate our (arguably) most important national holiday on the day of the first landing.

It took listening to Dan Carlin's podcast [1], which I couldn't recommend more, for me to learn much of what I know and pique my interest to read further.

[1] https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-50-bluepr...

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

#263

Post by rapsey »

throwaway6497 wrote: post #249
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…

I will always remember him as the guy who would willingly collude with other mentees of Bill Campbell to not hire engineers from each others companies. Willingly trying to keep the salaries of engineers low is pure evil. They even tried to rope-in Zuckerberg into this gentleman's agreement. Zuck asked them to buzz off. When Eric is involved in shady practices like these, how do all other leaders on twitterverse who a…

Sorry but this is just hopelessly naive and one sided. Sillicon valley is more then google and apple, and if the competition is only between them with regards to salary then those engineers have nothing to complain about.

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

#265

Post by visarga »

dekhn wrote: post #19
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.

it's kind of a bimodal distribution. many engineers hated him with a passion but then they would learn he wrote lex and set up early networks at Berkeley and kind of come around to the idea that he was a very successful technobusinessman who confronted Microsoft repeatedly.

> he wrote lex

Wow, didn't expect that. I used it back in my uni days for a compiler project.

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

#266

Post by manigandham »

scarface74 wrote: post #180
nkozyra wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From a business side, they really haven’t done too much. Myopic. They've greatly increased the eyeballs available to them through new products and business relationships

It’s been over 15 years and their net income was down year over year, their traffic acquisition costs were up and their margins were down. The “eyeballs” they are creating are less valuable and are more expensive to acquire. Isn’t that the same business plan of every startup? Get “eyeballs” and worry about profit later? What’s going to happen as more people start using ad blockers? They are still just a one trick pon…

>> They are still just a one trick pony.

Nothing wrong with that when it got them to a trillion dollar valuation. And Google Cloud has the potential to be even bigger than their entire ad business.

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

#267

Post by drb91 »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #245
Barrin92 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Once upon a time money was in producing stuff, now stuff and people are so much varied so that the main problem is that of pushing adds No, this is a very misleading comparison. Schmidt (and others) have found a way to commodify your personal information and how to transfer ownership of your data, and as such wealth, from you to Google. They're not the 21st equivalent of Henry Ford, they haven't unleashed new modes…

pushing adds is a service that means it is a 'product' that advertisers are buying. Of course google is also buying our data: its the price for using free products such as search, android and gmail; google is then reselling this data; this takes place either by reselling it directly or by using it as part of their service .

Terms of service should not imply consent to a transaction: that is inherently a dishonest and exploitative method of running a business.

Also, the idea of paying to use a free service is an oxymoron. Google is not and has never been free, it is ad supported, and it has ruined the internet by normalizing this behavior.

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

#268

Post by avar »

joshuamorton wrote: post #156
avar wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think Oracle encourages the sort of open internal debate culture that precipitated that well-known incident? The responsibility for corporate culture is ultimately with the CEO and the board.

Do you think Google would have attracted the talent it did with a culture like oracle's?

Just because a CEO decision has consequences doesn't mean it isn't ultimately up to the CEO or the board. Making executive decisions that involve trade-offs is their entire job.

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

#270

Post by JoeSmithson »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #226
icelancer wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're free to make your own choices. Schmidt (and Google) make no such promise. Use ProtonMail and DDG if you care so much, others will use Google, life moves on. No one is coercing anyone else.

> No one is coercing anyone else. Specifically because Schmidt made a career as a lobbyist for privacy erosion, I think he's open to criticism on this basis, even if he is not guilty of coercion. If it were some random person who was just developing a product I would agree with you to leave well enough alone, but I think the lobbying angle is enough to clear the bar of "theses actions should be publicly scrutinized".

What anti-privacy lobbying are you referencing?
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