Best run Page and Brin. When the hammer falls on political interference you want to be in another solar system.
Google is the greatest criminal enterprise to ever walk the face of the earth.
Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet
591–600 of 637 posts
Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet
#592Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except Google doesn't respect privacy.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but there certainly is evidence out there that suggests Google in fact does respect user privacy. For example, activity.google.com. They are also pretty up front about their privacy policy, how they use cookies, data retention policy, and so forth on policies.google.com. There is a lot of information there. There's a case to be made that Google is trying to do the right thing.
What Google does is try to look like they're respecting privacy and following the privacy laws only to the minimum amount possible.
Google of course cares a lot that your data doesn't get into the hands of other companies, after all, it's THEIR data. That's were their care ends.
Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet
#593Earlier quoted context omitted.
But you forget that to Patrick Bateman the (so called) greater good and broad knowledge expansion or other humanity-propelling criteria weren't nearly as relevant as the question if Patrick Bateman appeared successful. The image of Patrick Bateman was more important to Patrick Bateman than Einstein or his accomplishments.
I'm not sure whether I'm missing your point or you're repeating mine. Caring about job titles for their own sake strikes me as narcissistic.
It is, but most people are at least slightly narcissistic. Most people get at least a little bit of validation & happiness from obtaining a "better" job title. Also, it's not really just the plain title itself, but the trust the company has in you that it represents. Being able to say to somebody, "I'm VP of ____" gives you some cachet in today's middle/upper-middle class.
Sure, there are also people who couldn't care less what their title is, but I can't help but feel that most people would find the possibility of a 'better' title at least moderately motivating.
Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet
#594Earlier quoted context omitted.
How? Apples and Oranges comparison
Lack of any obvious vision or ideas: a safe pair of hands. The similarities are there, and not just Sundar/Ballmer but Sundar/Ballmer/Cook. It seems visionary CEOs like to appoint non-visionary successors. Someone who won't make big changes to their baby.
https://a16z.com/2010/12/16/ones-and-twos/
This is often inherent in the organizational structure of big companies. To the extent that there are visionaries in a big company, they're usually not anywhere on the executive team, or even anywhere that the CEO comes in direct contact with. If they were, they'd clash with the CEO's vision, which first of all would be confusing and inefficient for the organization and second is a power contest the CEO would win. So if the board wants to appoint a visionary from within, they usually need to reach several levels down in the org hierarchy, to someone who's run an innovative division semi-independently but been protected from overall company politics. If they elevate this person to CEO, everyone above them in the org chart will quit, as they've now been passed over for the top job.
Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet
#595Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
#596Earlier 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.
It's not an admission of failure. Two businessmen created one of the most successful, influencial businesses ever and are passing the torch. They're rich AF and probably want to retire.
He's talking about the decision to make the Alphabet conglomerate, not Sergey and Larry. Obviously no one disputes the two of them are extremely successful.
Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet
#597Earlier 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.
Maybe it's a way to signal that a project might last longer than 5 years before being killed off on a whim...
Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet
#598Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
But you forget that to Patrick Bateman the (so called) greater good and broad knowledge expansion or other humanity-propelling criteria weren't nearly as relevant as the question if Patrick Bateman appeared successful. The image of Patrick Bateman was more important to Patrick Bateman than Einstein or his accomplishments.
Titles are a currency in some parts of society. I am strongly anti-title and also pretty strongly anti-celebrity but I think it’s important to recognize that these things both have value to most of the people around you.
Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet
#599Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I dont see anything else coming out of non-Google alphabet of meaningful significance YouTube. But in general I agree with you.
Does anyone know how the subscription YouTube is working out? They sure are putting a good effort into getting me signed up.
I'm a subscriber, mostly because of YouTube Music. I wanted a music platform where I get push notifications of new music by artists I follow. This feature is broken in Spotify and they have no plans to fix (their words). It seems like a simple enough request, but it turns out this feature is also not available and/or broken in YouTube Music. I keep the subscription SOLELY to watch YouTube ad-free now, and for that it is awesome; but I'm considering switching to another music platform. It's hard for me to cancel my subscription to YouTube though because removing all the ads from YouTube is the only thing that makes it actually useful as a platform.
Re: Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet
#600I hate google and you should too.