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What is Google doing with its open source teams?

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Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?

#131

Post by lmeyerov »

adra wrote: post #83
spinningslate wrote: post #23

I've no inside knowledge on Google, so can't comment on the rationale for selecting those being let go. From the outside though, Google under Pichai increasingly looks like Microsoft under Ballmer in the late 2000s/early 2010s. Balmer was lauded for delivering good numbers from a dominant market position. That was fine - until it wasn't. Under his watch, Microsoft completely misjudged the internet and totally missed…

Microsoft didn't miss mobile, they supported many or all verticals of mobile probably 10 years before it ever really took off. They absolutely bungled it and pulled 3-4 various strategies that all seemed to fall flat by miss-judging the market or self defeating strategies to protect their other products/partners. I do see some similarities with the companies though. It's hard to say or blame this on CEOs, but rather…

Internally at Microsoft, the flops were obvious. Employees made fun of the zune, there was a lot of embarrassment that staff were preferring iphones to free company-provided alternatives, etc. Leadership was putting $ in (remember the Nokia acquisition disaster?) and individual teams were doing neato things, but leadership was feudal & by-the-numbers with many tiny product owners, and not led by a good overall product person.

Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?

#132

Post by sumeno »

buildbot wrote: post #27
lazide wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? He doesn’t have control of Alphabet, for sure. This is broad and across the industry.

Yes that is correct, but specifically this person is the activist investor publicly pushing for this. Maybe that had no effect, but certainly it seems like this man might be a bit responsible.

He's a convenient scapegoat for the people who actually made the decisions, the execs that are paid primarily in stock and have perverse incentives for maximizing short term gains.

Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?

#133

Post by Invictus0 »

doktorhladnjak wrote: post #60
pm90 wrote: post #7

It will be interesting to see amazing talent leave Google and build new companies and institutions now that it’s slowly being mismanaged to death.

My observation is that this has already been happening for a long time. I’ve worked with a lot of ex Google people in startups, especially more established ones. They pretty much all found it unsatisfying working there. Too slow. Too little impact. Maybe the layoffs will be a kick in the pants for others too, but they won’t be the first or alone in moving in that direction.

Not saying you're wrong, but your sample group is pretty biased.

Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?

#134

Post by scarface74 »

vineyardmike wrote: post #123
scarface74 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a completely false take. AWS was built from the ground up as separate infrastructure. What do you think is going to happen at peak of Amazon needs it’s own excess capacity at the same time customers need access capacity? Even today, much of Amazon is not on AWS.

> Even today, much of Amazon is not on AWS. They’re the same CPUs they just use an internal API to provision and not AWS APIs. I’m pretty sure the internal APIs also just wrap ec2 et al at this point (for backwards compatibility)

I guess I should disclose that I work at AWS. But it’s publicly well documented how the infrastructure of AWS came to be.

Much of the Amazon infrastructure predates AWS and was built on homegrown systems. A lot of wasn’t ported over.

If you want to see what it looks like to have an Amazon product made available to AWS and that wasn’t designed specifically for AWS, look no further than Amazon Connect. There were no publicly available APIS for years to automate anything. Every AWS native service is API first.

Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?

#135

Post by eecc »

bbor wrote: post #111
downrightmike wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a Capital Revolt. Workers were getting too comfortable, and now Money is teaching them a lesson

Thank you for this comment; this is exactly my opinion but expressed much more clearly.

Precisely. I saw it coming last year with all that print wasted on the "great resignation" and the "WFH revolution". It's the post-COVID Restoration.

Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?

#136

Post by spaceman_2020 »

spinningslate wrote: post #23

I've no inside knowledge on Google, so can't comment on the rationale for selecting those being let go. From the outside though, Google under Pichai increasingly looks like Microsoft under Ballmer in the late 2000s/early 2010s. Balmer was lauded for delivering good numbers from a dominant market position. That was fine - until it wasn't. Under his watch, Microsoft completely misjudged the internet and totally missed…

The three Google products I use most frequently - Gmail, Search, Maps - have been underperforming heavily lately. Search is useless unless you really tailor your query to find organic results (throwing in "reddit.com" is almost a necessity). Gmail frequently lets harmful spam slip through, sometimes even tagging it with an 'important' label.

The decline in Maps has been the most visible, mostly because it has negatively impacted my commute at times. Google Maps will frequently reroute me through slow, complex side roads and will often completely miss main roads. On routes that I already know, I've stopped following Google's directions altogether because its hilariously off-target.

Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?

#137

Post by yazaddaruvala »

vineyardmike wrote: post #113
phpisthebest wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is based on huge assumptions, and it is unclear how the internal billing works (i.e is the Ad business consuming AWS services "free" or is there internal chargebacks happening). Is the AWS Revenue just from external customers using the services.

> is the Ad business consuming AWS services "free" or is there internal chargebacks happening AWS bills Amazon an internal rate. It’s a closely held secret that few employees know but supposedly it’s better than at-cost.

It is not secret. There is an internal spreadsheet that documents all the prices.

Everyone has access! Everyone I worked with at Amazon knew the prices they were spending for the different services they were using or thinking of using.

Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?

#138

Post by johngalt_ »

Sunspark wrote: post #119
klodolph wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO it makes perfect sense for Google to be in cloud. Cloud infrastructure services are a race to the bottom—storage, compute, etc. You get people into your ecosystem and upsell them on SaaS offerings that integrate with your IaaS offerings. You have to be able to scale without growing staff linearly, which is already Google’s model (although Apple and Amazon are better at it). Google’s main problem IMO is the lack o…

Google doesn't have the ability to speak with a customer at ALL. If there is a problem, basically the only recourse you have is to flail about on HN, Reddit or Twitter and hope that you are noticed by a random Google employee who feels sympathy for your plight and decides to try and help you. The ONLY official channel they have where you can talk to someone that I am aware of, is sales and restricted to sales only. T…

Once I had an issue with a Google App Store (I paid for some app expensive subscription but did not get access) payment and got a pretty quick and efficient customer support. They were very polite, checked the issue, explained what happened, and offered some solution. Perharps they provide better support in my country due to customer protection laws or I just got lucky.

Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?

#139

Post by shp0ngle »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #91
fidgewidge wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they misjudge the market? Windows CE was quite popular in the smartphone segment before iOS and Android steamrollered every existing incumbent. The idea that having a computer in your pocket was important, that was classic 90s era Gatesism and they were right on target. Microsoft lost (not missed) mobile because the Windows team had been losing the ability to execute competently. iOS was essentially macOS for mob…

Android is just now catching up with where Windows Mobile was years ago. Execution wasn't the problem. The problem remains that Gmail and YouTube are monopolies and Google aggressively interfered with them working on WinMo because it was Android's only real competitor (an OS licensed to phone OEMs). Microsoft obviously has it's own monopolies but it failed to leverage them on mobile. Shockingly, a great experience us…

This is a very weird take. Complaining that Google is monopolistic compared to Microsoft, of all companies.

Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?

#140

Post by ignoramous »

spinningslate wrote: post #23

I've no inside knowledge on Google, so can't comment on the rationale for selecting those being let go. From the outside though, Google under Pichai increasingly looks like Microsoft under Ballmer in the late 2000s/early 2010s. Balmer was lauded for delivering good numbers from a dominant market position. That was fine - until it wasn't. Under his watch, Microsoft completely misjudged the internet and totally missed…

> ...search was already dominant and both YouTube and Android

Easy to forget but Pichai-led Chrome team ensured Search stayed dominant in face of an increasingly hostile Microsoft. Later, Pichai was handed the keys to all of Google Apps and Android with Rubin pushed out to Robotics. According to reports, Pichai was a key peacemaker in deals with Samsung and Xiaomi, who otherwise threatened to break away from the Open Handset Alliance. Pichai went to war and further tightened Google's grip on Android, dealt with Microsoft (CyanogenMod / patents), Amazon (FireOS), and Apple / Oracle (patents).

This is discounting Pichai's track record with hardware: Chromebook and Chromecast. Probably hardware firsts for Google back in the day?

As an outsider, it seems like Pichai sustained most if not all of Google's consumer products, bar YouTube and Nest.

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