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Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet

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

#531

Post by usrusr »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #193
hnzix wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is that a mission for the new decade? It would be nice to see a focused mission from El Goog. From the outside it feels like they incubate a bunch of random semi-competing products which are arbitrarily terminated or boosted. There's a lot of talent that could be marshaled.

They have a mission, to control the interface between consumers and digital business. All their 'random' stuff makes sense in that context.

Not just digital. In the analog age, all those little "yellow pages" publishers around the world were in a similar position and got quite fat from it as well. Now that entire market is concentrated, with enormous automation benefits, at a single address in Mountain View.

Injecting Google intro the interface for brick and mortar businesses is why Maps and Android exist.

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

#532

Post by blisterpeanuts »

danso wrote: post #367
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sundar made a mistake in wading into politics after the 2016 elections. A good business leader knows to stay out of the forbidden topics of politics and religion; unite the troops, don't divide them. I don't think he realized how much impact his words would have on conservatives once the TGIF video got out. Anyway let's hope they learned something about remaining neutral in public, as the company "grows up".

None of the big tech companies have avoided "wading into politics" since 2016. Tech is far too big and inextricable a part of society for any competent CEO to think they could hide on the sidelines.

There's a big difference between "hiding on the sidelines" and maintaining a neutral stance in public. Apple's Tim Cook is an example of the latter.

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

#533

Post by linza »

zaarn wrote: post #503
davidwihl wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

keeping it as separate entities meant that useful data could not be shared. Under one org, more data can be safely shared while respecting user privacy.

Except Google doesn't respect privacy.

I doubt think this is accurate.

Google might not respect the desire for an open internet without ads and no single large player.

But i believe they fully respect their users privacy, comply with most of the law around privacy already, and have the strong desire to fully comply with it in the future.

Maybe I'm naive that way. But painting them as not respecting privacy at all is a bit blunt and not nuanced enough.

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

#534

Post by arbitrary_name »

ALittleLight wrote: post #234
yardie wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also unique to the US. We have one of the highest infant mortality rates of any developed country. And our average life expectancy is one of the lowest for a developed country [0]. We could a lot less philanthropic billionaires and more economic policies that don't treat everyone as disposable cogs. [0] http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/life-expectancy-b...

The high infant mortality is largely explained by the fact that the US counts premature birth related deaths as part of infant mortality and other countries don't. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161013103132.h... Life expectancy loss is mostly drugs and obesity. Hard to see how philanthropic billionaires are a problem on either front.

The Sackler family is directly implicated in the 'drugs' part.

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

#535

Post by gofry321 »

juanbyrge wrote: post #466
jillesvangurp wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Nadella is a clear case of MS getting lucky. They picked a leader from their own ranks that transformed the company in a few short years. Given the names that were circulating for that role at the time, I don't think they could have done better. It's current valuation would not have happened ever under Balmer. Not even close. That's why he was pushed out. MS was down a path of slow decline and now they are no…

I think the decline of Microsoft in the mid-2000's was mainly caused by them missing the boat on the two massive shifts in computing -- from desktop software to web and mobile. Google, on the other hand, is firmly entrenched in both web and mobile. Until there is a similar shift (if there will ever be one), I don't see Google stagnating the same way that Microsoft did.

Google missed cloud computing, they are only 3rd behind Amazon and Microsoft.

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

#536

Post by tanilama »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #108

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…

Sundar lacks that maverick charm that founders of legendary company usually have.

He feels ... reserved and safe.

Maybe that is what Google needs at this moment

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

#537

Post by chisleu »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #522
tomp wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could easily do that by having sub-companies of Google instead of sub-companies of Alphabet.

I think the reason they went for this is so that the sub-companies would not be at risk if Google (the search engine / advertising giant) had a problem.

I think that was the other way around.

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

#538

Post by sbarre »

linza wrote: post #533
zaarn wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except Google doesn't respect privacy.

I doubt think this is accurate. Google might not respect the desire for an open internet without ads and no single large player. But i believe they fully respect their users privacy, comply with most of the law around privacy already, and have the strong desire to fully comply with it in the future. Maybe I'm naive that way. But painting them as not respecting privacy at all is a bit blunt and not nuanced enough.

Saying "they fully respect their users privacy" is also blunt and not nuanced.

They are a huge company with thousands of teams pursuing their own agendas and made up of people of varying degree of scruples and viewpoints with regards to privacy.

I've worked for large companies that handle sensitive user data, and they all have at least some teams of people trying to figure out how they can respect the letter of privacy laws just enough, while ignoring the spirit of those laws, in order to profit from the personal data they hold, regardless of the potential side effects or long-term impact on the data subject.

Google is probably no different.

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

#539

Post by mrec »

londons_explore wrote: post #489
endorphone wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a way this seems like an admission of the failure of the "Alphabet" thing. The idea behind that originally was that all of these other projects were going to become so significant that it wouldn't make sense to have them or their management coupled with Google. But a half-decade later, it's still 99.9% Google, so just double-up the Google guy to lead both tiers. Same as it ever was.

The original reason was that smart people like career progression. Money alone isn't enough to keep them - they want something good on their business cards. Otherwise some will leave to become CEO of another company. By making a group of companies, you can have many CEO's, more directors, more VP's, etc. and therefore keep hold of more smart people who are after external recognition more than money.

Careerist people like career progression. I think that's largely orthogonal to smarts or lack thereof.

I doubt Einstein cared very much what was on his business card. Patrick Bateman certainly did.

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

#540

Post by koheripbal »

dragonwriter wrote: post #518
endorphone wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a way this seems like an admission of the failure of the "Alphabet" thing. The idea behind that originally was that all of these other projects were going to become so significant that it wouldn't make sense to have them or their management coupled with Google. But a half-decade later, it's still 99.9% Google, so just double-up the Google guy to lead both tiers. Same as it ever was.

> The idea behind that originally was that all of these other projects were going to become so significant that it wouldn't make sense to have them or their management coupled with Google. No, the idea was that they were high risk speculative efforts and that it didn't make sense to have their branding mixed up with Google, which is a stable, established industry leader.

That's a semantic distinction. All major corporations have highly speculative projects that they aren't certain will succeed. With (relatively) minor investments most don't form an umbrella corporation to distinguish them.

In this case, I dont see anything else coming out of non-Google alphabet of meaningful significance, and this org change kind of highlights that.

In my personal opinion, the Google founders probably still DO have some radical plans, but I bet with the increased scrutiny in Congress and abroad they are thinking the Google vrand is more of a liability than an asset.

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