Live data from Hacker News

Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet

blog.google

201–210 of 637 posts

Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet

#201
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is literally the job of PR people to write things like these. I’m confused by your statement. This is effectively a press release, of course it was written by a PR person.

That doesn't mean it has to read like it was written by a PR person.

I agree that ideally you wouldn’t notice that … however I do think there are pretty clear constraints around how you can announce such a thing to avoid harm.

You will always end up with a text like that. It tries to reduce risk and harm and companies will nearly always want to pick that trade-off: rather sound bland and cliched instead of risking undue negative effects.

Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet

#202
post #25

I see a few comments praising Sundar. As someone who doesn’t follow closely, but feels that Google has deteriorated dramatically under his watch, does someone mind explaining the reasoning for said praise?

It seems most people are probably praising him for bringing up the Google stock price, whereas people who actually care about products/culture/technology realize he hasn't actually contributed anything worthwhile. Yet another classic case of a CEO riding out momentum set forth by predecessors and maximizing value to fiduciaries while selling out the user base.

Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet

#203

Weirdly this feels like a non-issue. Google has not felt like it has a "personality" for some time - maybe it's a function of hitting mega-corporate size, but it also feels a bit like when Microsoft (a Computer on every Desktop) essentially achieved its goal, it then spent a decade in "goalless and soulless exploitation" mode - something that one suspects is the next step for the worlds largest personality-free platf…

Ironically, they could find some focus by no longer being a one size fits all search engine, and instead offer different search products for different types of users, or focused on different types of information. They do to an extent with travel data, financial data, scholar, but their product just isnt great at crawling the web anymore.

They, like Apple and Microsoft, also need some consumer experience advocates, who take a step back and ask how the consumers entire experience is across the whole suite. All of them have products that are often less than the sum of their parts.

Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet

#204
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You posted that someone needed to demonstrate "structural discontent" via a news story involving at least 1K employees. They linked to one involving 20K. And your response to that is: "This proves that discontent is diminishing?" You set the challenge, they exceeded it 20x, and you've not made a believable case that this shows "content is diminishing." In fact exceeding your original demands by 20x seems to thoroughl…

For anyone pointing to "structural discontent" at Google, you guys seem to be very out of touch with reality. Compared to 99% of other large corporations (in US, or worldwide), Google is heaven on Earth as a place to work at. $200k entry level comp, lots of perks, very smart people all around you, open culture, coolest stuff to work on, cutting edge tech stack and great tools, future technologies being invented right…

This has nothing to do with the post you replied to.

Plus this retort essentially boils down to "Google pays well and other companies are even worse so quit complaining!" Restating the compensation argument multiple different ways, and the cutting edge argument multiple times doesn't really address the actual underlying complaints being made (Google's partnership with distasteful foreign governments and other corporate immoralities).

If you want to talk corporate morals, sure, relevant. If you just want to brag that Google pays super well and is less evil than [more evil companies] this seems like a whole other discussion that sidesteps the issues. Which isn't to say it is untrue, just irrelevant.

Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet

#205
A well deserved congratulations to Sundar's promotion!

Larry and Sergey have spent the majority of their time on Other Bets for quite some time now, and it's good to see that this is finally being solidified / recognized within Alphabet's management structure.

Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cashing out before the antitrust suits start to hit.

I'm not sure how long these sort of antitrust cases take to litigate (I was young during Microsoft's high profile case), but I'd say this is one of the most rational explanations as to why, seemingly out of nowhere, they'd parachute away together. 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 financia…

Out of nowhere? - They created Alphabet to pull themselves out of daily Google business.

Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So Gates is not alone. Buffet and Ellison have both pledged the vast majority of their wealth to the Gates Foundation. Somewhat unique to the US, our billionaires tends to be fairly philanthropic.

Didn't Page and Brin pledge their fortunes to Musk?

Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet

#208
post #19

I think this is good news. Google has sometimes felt like it was pulled in two different directions - making the core business successful, and providing spinoff cash for the crazy projects. Having the same person run both of them seems like it will make management more efficient. It probably means that a number of Larry and Sergey "pet projects" will become deprioritized. Good. Self-driving cars seem like they have g…

What are some Larry and Sergey pet project? Genuinely curious.

Supposedly Google-X and Glass was Sergei's billionaire playground, with Waymo being Larry's pet project.
Post reply on HN