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Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet

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371–380 of 637 posts

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

#371

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…

What ever happened to digitizing all of the world’s information?

That still feels like at least a 100yr mission.

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

#372
post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think Sundar has been a pretty good CEO and probably a better businessman Has he though? I get the sense that he’s really Balmering it up in that he inherited a super successful company, and didn’t do much with it except not screw up. The two big growth areas- social and cloud- are dead or a distant and growing third. Google hasn’t done much new or exciting through his whole term. So no new products, the 2016 ele…

YouTube and Gmail are massive social networks.

If you want to water down the definition beyond recognition then snail mail is a social network.

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

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but surely people mean something when they say "unbiased", right? (I'll take a stab at it: something like "conveyed without the intention to deceive me, especially politically/financially/etc...") 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. :)

> something like "conveyed without the intention to deceive me, especially politically/financially/etc...") That isn't even close to the definition of "unbiased" that I use. To me, something is "unbiased" if it based on facts without being interpreted in accordance with some preexisting belief or worldview.

For what it's worth i agree with this. A realistic example of what i would describe as unbiased is, say, telemetry data from a radio telescope, or a neutral reading of a poem or story.

Tools are unbiased.

I think the real danger is actually in the notion that "bias" is something done to deceive, and I have encountered people who imply this quite a bit in real life

By way of example: I have a strong bias towards the nationalization of infrastructure. Many of my opinions and arguments are designed to support this end because, for reasons I would love to explain I believe it's the best course of action. I am, if anything, prone to never letting anyone leave my company without droning on and on about this! There is not deception involved. People certainly do hide their biases, or lie about things in order to support their arguments, but this is not something inevitable with bias.

Ultimately I think everyone needs to deal with the reality that we ALL have biases and we ALL inject them into our work. This is actually ok, because its part of how we work to build the world we want to live in.

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

#374
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what their continued involvement will look like. For a while after Bill Gates stepped down as CEO, there was this awkward tension where Steve Balmer was CEO, but people still treated Bill like he was the one in control -- because he was.

> I'm curious what their continued involvement will look like. Page and Brin, combined, are currently the majority shareholders of alphabet. Each controls 27% of the voting power ( 54% combined ). They are still in charge. They just won't be involved in the day-to-day operation of the company. Sundar will still report to Page/Brin and the board of directors.

Honestly, there’s so much drama and turmoil there, I wouldn’t want to be there either. So many other productive things they could be doing.

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

#375
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you call a billionaire who gives away their billions? Survivorship bias.

Technically, the billionaires who don't give away their money would be the "survivors."

I think that's the point. The bias leans towards those who don't give

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

#377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Weirdly this feels like a non-issue" It is. That page is awful with a hood that keeps flapping around up and down and text that is trying to be true to italics for quotes instead of lots of diacritics and ends up looking badly diseased. Then the letter sidesteps into a memo, which is equally odd and awkward. It's all a bit odd. S and B (in my very opinionated ... opinion) did create a great thing in Google. I can't…

> wierdos whot spy on you LOL. I agree with a lot of your points but this one really hit home. On this one, the spying, I always wondered how odd or awkward it had to be internally to push new methods, techniques, or initiatives for "improving user experience" (I.e., spying). I interviewed for some Technical Solutions Engineer role at Google a long time ago. I really wanted the job but when asked a couple questions a…

I think it's very likely that they wanted you to question the ethics there. I don't know what your interview was like though.

Googler, opinions are my own.

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

#378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I just don't believe this. Google is one of the largest and most powerful companies in the world. Having both people step down like this is incredibly strange. I mean, neither of them even tried the ol' "I'm stepping down to spend time with my family" thing.

Larry and Sergey are basically best friends. Their involvement with Google, as a pair, has been receding for quite some time. Today's announcement was foreshadowed by the creation of Alphabet Inc. as a parent company in 2015.

After Brin’s affairs came to light, Page was so pissed off, he didn’t talk to him for many months. They might not be best friends at this point.

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

#380
post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's there on paper, but is is really still there?

I am a Googler, opinions on my own. The problem with the phrase is that it is very relative depending on your meaning of evil. It's a shifting over time and varies by person. At the same time it provides a good guiding principle for Google as a whole. You need to think about users in different parts of the world with different ideas of what is good and evil, and try to cater to all of them. It's a really hard problem…

Just give me what I search for, no filters, no bullshit.
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