Dear Larry and Sergey, Thank you for creating Google. Nobody could prove that without it the web would have been a better place. You couldn’t have known what’s to come when you were raising hundreds of thousands of dollars as two students in 1998. Maybe your leadership has been one of the least evil among the possibilities in the evil world we live in. However, we know what is it like to lose control of your company,…
That is something that I kind of admire about Bill Gates: As Microsoft's boss he was ruthless, and even anti-competitive, all to benefit his own company. But somehow, he is one of the "best type of person" that could become the richest man in our world. There are so many rich people that just look to be buried with their millions or pass it to their family. Hopefully Sergei and Larry will try to get the same type of…
Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet
181–190 of 637 posts
Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
This paragraph seems pretty straightforward: >Today, in 2019, if the company was a person, it would be a young adult of 21 and it would be time to leave the roost. While it has been a tremendous privilege to be deeply involved in the day-to-day management of the company for so long, we believe it’s time to assume the role of proud parents—offering advice and love, but not daily nagging!
From the outside, it feels much more like the company is hitting a midlife crisis (feeling unsettled, not as agile as they used to be) than a young adult.
By that yardstick, Google was in its young adolescence when it IPO'd (seems reasonable), was an idealistic young adult when I joined in 2009 (also reasonable), is now hitting a midlife crisis, and will die sometime around 2040.
Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet
#183Alphabet and Google being a separate company makes even less sense now.
It's a line-item hack, the way that Hollywood studios structure films to be separate sub-corporations with their own fixed budgets. So if a film crew, say, accidentally blows up a small town somehow, there's a firewall between the assets that were dedicated to making that one film and the entirety of, for example, Sony Pictures net worth and capital. I'm not sure that firewall is well-tested in American law, but it's…
One of the things people were anxious to see was the financials of YouTube. Guess who's not a separate "bet"?
Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet
#184Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't be too pedantic. By your definition, what even is unbiased? A list of all the sites on the web, A to Z? Words are what we make of them, and there's clearly some distinction between Google and, say, Baidu that is entirely appropriate to capture with the word "unbiased".
I dont think this is pedantic and my point is exactly as you describe! There is no such thing as "unbiased" and people who are in search of that are living in a dream world.
I get your point, and it's an important one -- but ime conversations are a lot more productive when they're about the ideas, not the words. :)
Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you know what they will be doing next?
Cashing out before the antitrust suits start to hit.
It looks like an attempt to try to distance themselves, their personal images, and their assets before it gets too ugly. I would certainly do so unless my personal financial analysts told me otherwise.
Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet
#187Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think they made every effort possible to cut this at the root, and even retaliate. the fact that 4 out of 7 of the organizers of the walkout left the company[1], some with more than 10 years working for Google, is rather telling. I don't think your comment holds water. [1] https://www.wired.com/story/most-google-walkout-organizers-l...
I don't get the constant critiques of this. They fired employees who encouraged others to leave their jobs. That's not really "retaliation", is it? Were a competitor to do that, Google would have a case for tortious interference. Why is it any different when it's "organizing"? It's not like this was a unionization attempt, which might have some legal protection.
Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet
#189This has to be a green light for TK to take Cloud and really run with it. There's no way Sundar can give as much attention to Google and all the other bets simultaneously. Curious what side projects of Larry and Sergey get turned down now.
Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet
#190https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/06/technology/google-sexual-...
And relatedly:
> Charlie Ayers: Sergey’s the Google playboy. He was known for getting his fingers caught in the cookie jar with employees that worked for the company in the masseuse room. He got around.
Heather Cairns: And we didn’t have locks, so you can’t help it if you walk in on people if there’s no lock. Remember, we’re a bunch of twentysomethings except for me—ancient at 35, so there’s some hormones and they’re raging.
Charlie Ayers: H.R. told me that Sergey’s response to it was, “Why not? They’re my employees.” But you don’t have employees for fucking! That’s not what the job is.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/valley-of-genius-exc...