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No longer loving Google

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Re: No longer loving Google

#11

Post by pamelafox »

When I first started working at Google, I truly loved them as a user-facing company. And for the first few years, I thought I would work there forever and I could imagine no other place for me. But by the time I left, I was bitter and no longer in love. For various reasons, I felt like I had been betrayed by what I thought Google was at the beginning.

It is my fault for having such idealistic expectations for what ultimately boils down to a money-driven company but I also think that there is a world in which I could have left Google loving it, or at least not so entirely disenchanted.

I look back on my grade school and college with fond memories; I wish I could look back on Google the same way.

Oh well, onwards and upwards.

Re: No longer loving Google

#12

Post by kprobst »

I don't understand why people thought that somehow a publicly traded corporation was going to behave forever in the same way as a garage startup. Once Google reached a certain size, a certain revenue level, and became beholden to institutional shareholders plus (in this case) found itself in a position of largely uncontested market control, I think it was inevitable that it would turn into the all too familiar caricature of a corporation.

Re: No longer loving Google

#13

Post by NelsonMinar »

fady wrote: post #5

some very good thoughts indeed. it's interesting to see your point of view, especially the part about how they're just worrying about market position, etc. i'm curious to know from current employees, if the change of ceo has made things better, worse? how are things internally these days with larry running the show?

Hi, I wrote the linked blog post. I don't have many friends left at Google but from what I've heard there's a lot of internal debate about the direction of the company now. There's been years of grumbling about how big the company has gotten, but more lately there's a lot of dissent around the outsized role of Google+. If you believe this story, the debate is quite heated: http://pandodaily.com/2012/01/24/larry-page-to-googlers-if-y...

Re: No longer loving Google

#15

Post by NelsonMinar »

pamelafox wrote: post #11

When I first started working at Google, I truly loved them as a user-facing company. And for the first few years, I thought I would work there forever and I could imagine no other place for me. But by the time I left, I was bitter and no longer in love. For various reasons, I felt like I had been betrayed by what I thought Google was at the beginning. It is my fault for having such idealistic expectations for what ul…

Hey Pamela! I fear you had a particularly rough time at Google. Bad project luck, also coming in later. I do look back at my time on Google as fondly as, say, graduate school. Particularly the early years, 2001–2004, it was a truly amazing place to be.

That's why I wrote this post up, I just feel sad about where Google is now. Fortunately there's organizations like Y Combinator and places like Hacker News with a lot of startup passion and excitement.

Re: No longer loving Google

#16

Post by sek »

untog wrote: post #2

Google is too powerful, too arrogant, too entrenched to be worth our love. Let them defend themselves Wise words. I think the same applies to companies like Apple as well- I'll never understand why people dedicate so much personal energy to defending a company that needs no help. They're big enough to look after themselves.

This is bullshit. To bring these few examples to discredit Google here.

Think of their record: OpenSource, Android, SOPA, Fight against Software Patens and so on. Google is still on our side and we need them against all the Microsoft and MPAAs.

To be on so many battlefields and doing so few problematic things is impressive. Did they ever really compromise their core values? Google tries not to compromise them, but they are not naive, look what happened to Sun.

I don't trust Google as a company as i trust the values of the Founders. I am convinced they are legacy focused and as long as they are in charge they try their best.

Re: No longer loving Google

#17

Post by dataminer »

mahmud wrote: post #7

Is there a check-list for Google products & alternatives? I was just thinking of going through this exercise last night. Don't feel comfortable with them anymore.

I have been trying duckduckgo since last week for search, so far over 95% of my queries are resulting in good results, its my default now in pentadactyl. I will be installing Zimbra ZCS opensource edition on one of my servers for mail, calendaring. Haven't found any alternative for youtube yet.

Re: No longer loving Google

#18

Post by Aloisius »

kprobst wrote: post #12

I don't understand why people thought that somehow a publicly traded corporation was going to behave forever in the same way as a garage startup. Once Google reached a certain size, a certain revenue level, and became beholden to institutional shareholders plus (in this case) found itself in a position of largely uncontested market control, I think it was inevitable that it would turn into the all too familiar carica…

Don't Sergey and Brin have 10x voting rights? I was under the impression that common shareholders couldn't do a darn thing to them.

Re: No longer loving Google

#20

Post by robert_nsu »

mahmud wrote: post #7

Is there a check-list for Google products & alternatives? I was just thinking of going through this exercise last night. Don't feel comfortable with them anymore.

I'm wondering how many down votes I would get for suggesting Bing as an alternative to search.
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