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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

#611

Post by jillesvangurp »

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.

They missed that boat because of a lack of vision. They lacked viaion because of their leadership. Nadella drove through some big changes in short timespan and demonstrated a keen sense of what was important for MS. E.g. applying embrace and extend to OSS is a classic MS play that neither Ballmer nor Gates was prepared to make happen long after it was obvious it needed to be done. Enter Nadella and we now have vs code, ms github, and an actual ff-ing linux kernel that actually comes with windows 10 ready to run docker and a lot of other stuff. Also Azure is now runs mostly linux and things like sql server can run on linux. To top it off, MS is now once more exciting developers. I've not seen that level of excitement about anything they do since the mid nineties. That's leadership.

Google at the same time seems to struggle to convince developers that they need to drop their fancy languages for a bastardized and outdated thing called Dart that basically can only be explained as a ginormous not invented here syndrome combined with sunk cost fallacy. Just a minor example of things Google tries that have an obvious ticking clock in terms of them killing it in favor of something else. Also what's up with having 3 operating systems for devices and dragging out picking one out for half a decade? That's Conway's law in action right there.

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

#612

Post by wickedwiesel »

HelloMcFly wrote: post #553
mrec wrote: post #539

Earlier 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.

I doubt Einstein cared what was on his business card, but I'm sure he cared very much about being in the right career position to do the work that interested him, and to have the ability to influence his work and others.

I dont want to nitpick, but some of his most influential work - dubbed the "annus mirabilis" papers / "amazing year" [0] - was done while he was an assistant examiner at the patent office in Bern. Definitely not a position he was aiming for, but still, a highly productive time.

- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers

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

#613

Post by magduf »

spudlyo wrote: post #606
hordeallergy wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone know how the subscription YouTube is working out? They sure are putting a good effort into getting me signed up.

If you love YouTube and hate advertising, then Premium is a very easy decision to make. I'm more than happy to pay Google $12 a month so I can have an ad-free experience on my TV, iPad, phone, and computer. I have both Netflix and HBO-Now as well, but I'm thinking about canceling them, as 90% of my viewing time is spent on YouTube.

One really nice thing about YouTube is that you can download your favorite programs there with "youtube-dl". I don't know if that works for the premium stuff though (I doubt it). So if you want to download, for instance, all the Rick Steves episodes and then watch them on your plane flight (where you don't have free internet access, or someplace else where the service isn't fast enough to watch YT), it's easy to do, and impossible with those other services.

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

#614

Post by magduf »

mrec wrote: post #589
HelloMcFly wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically job titles as noted in that post accompany some varying level of responsibility and leadership. If this is simply about what title is on your card then OK, sure. But in my experience, many (not all) are seeking the autonomy and influence behind those titles. Einstein had titles too, but it was the influence and work behind those titles he wanted. It's the same for many "careerists", a term I do not like.

I think you're losing sight of the original argument I was responding to: that a main reason for spinning off bits of Google as separate Alphabet subsidiaries was to allow job title inflation for the same role . There's only one CEO per company, so if you want more CEOs you need more companies. Being CEO of Waymo probably isn't that different from being Manager of the Autonomous Cars Division or whatever, but it soun…

>There's only one CEO per company,

Usually, but not always. When I was at Intel, they had two CEOs. They called it "two in a box" for some odd reason.

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

#615

Post by magduf »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #568
sverhagen wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook too. I hate both with a similar passion. But I'm in tech and thanks to HN I have a vague idea how the sausage is made. Do regular users share our dislike of these companies? If not, which is what I suspect, this fleeing will be mostly nonexistent.

I think generally, people do hate both, though neither as much as Twitter. Personally I feel most strongly about Google, because I really believed the marketing back in the day. Took me a long time to get disillusioned, and when I did I felt all the worse for having been a supporter for so long.

Why would anyone hate Twitter? I mean, I don't care for it either, but it doesn't really affect me because I simply don't use it. I don't have an account, and really don't pay attention to it, except for all the "tweets" from Trump in the news.

Facebook is different. It's pretty hard to avoid using Facebook without being an outcast in a way, if all your friends and family are on there and they use it to communicate, schedule events, etc. There's also Facebook Marketplace which seems to have taken over for Craigslist for selling stuff locally. I'm one of those people who has an account there, but never actually posts anything, but I keep it because I have a few people who insist on using it to communicate; I've met lots of people like this.

Twitter just isn't like this at all. I think it's dumb, but it's easy to ignore.

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

#616

Post by tguedes »

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.

Microsoft didn't miss the boat on either web or mobile, they were one of the first to both. They just fundamentally misunderstood the value proposition of each because of how successful they were with Windows on the desktop.

For the web, they thought the browser was key to the web and would be what would hold all the APIs because the browser was like the OS for the web. The most valuable thing about the web ended being the graphs and connections you can create through data rather than the browser, which is why Facebook, Google, and Amazon had the most success because of the internet.

For mobile, they released Windows Mobile in 2000 but it was just a slimmed down version of Windows on the desktop. They didn't understand that mobile required a completely new UX experience and just tried to fit what they knew (desktop UX) into mobile.

They viewed both opportunities through the lens of the desktop, which makes sense, that's what made them so successful. But because of their success, they weren't capable of looking at the opportunities with fresh eyes.

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

#617

Post by the_watcher »

enitihas wrote: post #53
the_watcher wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sundar joined Google in 2004. He didn't become CEO until 2015, when Eric Schmidt stepped down.

Eric Schmidt had step down long before that, and Larry Page was the CEO. In 2015, Alphabet was formed and Page became the CEO of Alphabet, leaving Sundar as the CEO of Google.

You're right, I forgot about that.

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

#618

Post by Stratoscope »

jeremyfranco wrote: post #542
jeremyfranco wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False: you can't if you're browsing the site anonymously.

This is funny, downvoted for writing the truth... It is impossible for anonymous readers to open dead comments. If it is not, please explain me how to do it

I wasn't one of your downvoters. (As you may know, you can't downvote a direct reply to your own comment.) But I think I know why your comment was downvoted.

greesil wrote: "now that it's flagged I can't even re read it"

I replied: "You can read flagged/dead comments by turning on 'showdead' on your profile/settings page."

You then replied: "False: you can't if you're browsing the site anonymously."

Now ask yourself, who was the "you" I addressed in my comment? Obviously greesil, and by extension other logged-in users like yourself.

I wasn't talking to, or talking about, anonymous readers. I never said they could read dead comments. They don't have profile pages! The discussion had nothing to do with anonymous readers until you brought them up out of the blue and incorrectly called my comment "false".

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

#619

Post by detaro »

linza wrote: post #562
sbarre wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 priva…

What i meant was that i believe they try to follow the law around privacy. The law might not be "good enough", but that's in us not them (modulo the lobbying). I'm not trying to say larger companies are innocent. Saying they don't respect privacy insinuates to me that they intentionally violate the law, and i don't think that that's true.

Then they don't respect their users privacy, they respect (or not) the laws.

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

#620

Post by bb88 »

basch wrote: post #365
prepend wrote: post #351

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.

I would debate both of those are social networks. Now I will grant you that in the past I would have considered YouTube one, but today it's just content delivery with comments.
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