This individual joined Google in 2009, and left before he'd been there 3 years. He's in no position to be waxing nostalgic about the "good old days" of Google.
Why I Left Google
141–150 of 322 posts
Re: Why I Left Google
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
>what is Google+ (or Facebook for that matter) about if it isn't about advertising? It's about your identity. Google has said outright that their plan is to become an identity company. Google already knows everyone's identity (or have at least put extraordinary amounts of effort into probabilistic matching it). They're not going to stand by and let Facebook and Twitter own the login authentication process the same wa…
The only reason to want your identity is for advertising. Google went from a technology company (with the goal of collecting and making available all the world's information) to a social media company (with the goal of collecting information on the unwashed masses). Google has gone from cool to dirty and I think we'll see more Googlers leaving the company as they slowly discover that fact.
I mostly suspect you're right. But at the same time I get the sense that nobody is completely sure what all this social identity is going to be good for.
Like the early days of the web, everybody can see that it will be very important going forward, but the business models it will support aren't fully clear yet. So it's a mad land grab at the moment in the hope it will monetize or be commercially leveragable somehow down the road.
For example, a Facebook valuation of $100B? More than $100 per active user? Come on. No matter how well you can target them, how many banner ads are these people going to click?
Re: Why I Left Google
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
Clayton Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma" was motivated by DEC getting killed. He claims that DEC was a victim of a disruption: a new technology that offered something that didn't seem to be a threat, become successful in other markets and eventually improved enough that it was threat - then it was too late. There, the old technology was minicomputers; the new technology was workstations. The new technology isn…
Here are my thoughts as an engineer at Google. These are my own thoughts, not Google's :) I don't think Google is fighting for its life; people are not defecting away from search to use Facebook's search or Bing or whatever. Right now, Google+ is something like, "let's see what happens if we build a social component and integrate it with our products". It doesn't seem like much right now and it's certainly not killin…
I agree for the most part that Google is not "fighting for it's life", though I think it has faltered a bit.
> people are not defecting away from search to use Facebook's search or Bing or whatever.
You are perhaps missing the point a little.
It doesn't matter what people are doing, it's what advertisers are doing. The fact that everyone still uses Google search won't be worth much if advertisers are only interested in putting ads on Facebook.... Google would be running an expensive, but popular, charity.
I don't think the day like that will come, but it is clear that Google's revenue can be threatened from things like Facebook which don't directly compete with their products.
Re: Why I Left Google
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here are my thoughts as an engineer at Google. These are my own thoughts, not Google's :) I don't think Google is fighting for its life; people are not defecting away from search to use Facebook's search or Bing or whatever. Right now, Google+ is something like, "let's see what happens if we build a social component and integrate it with our products". It doesn't seem like much right now and it's certainly not killin…
I agree for the most part that Google is not "fighting for it's life", though I think it has faltered a bit. > people are not defecting away from search to use Facebook's search or Bing or whatever. You are perhaps missing the point a little. It doesn't matter what people are doing, it's what advertisers are doing. The fact that everyone still uses Google search won't be worth much if advertisers are only interested…
Yeah, absolutely.
I think iPhone vs. Android is a good analogy. Google is never going to kill Apple and Apple is never going to kill Google. Google provides a phone platform for two groups: people who want the cheapest smartphone, and people who want the most freedom to customize their phone. Apple provides a phone platform for people willing to spend a good amount of money on a phone that works perfectly without tweaking. Android will never satisfy John Gruber. Apple will never satisfy Jon Rockway. So there are two platforms and they happily coexist.
Re: Why I Left Google
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here are my thoughts as an engineer at Google. These are my own thoughts, not Google's :) I don't think Google is fighting for its life; people are not defecting away from search to use Facebook's search or Bing or whatever. Right now, Google+ is something like, "let's see what happens if we build a social component and integrate it with our products". It doesn't seem like much right now and it's certainly not killin…
I agree for the most part that Google is not "fighting for it's life", though I think it has faltered a bit. > people are not defecting away from search to use Facebook's search or Bing or whatever. You are perhaps missing the point a little. It doesn't matter what people are doing, it's what advertisers are doing. The fact that everyone still uses Google search won't be worth much if advertisers are only interested…
I disagree, and in my opinion this is the exact logical flaw that has lead google down it's current path.
Facebook might become more profitable at some point, yes, but google's revenue was not threatened if they kept their spot as search engine and innovator.
Re: Why I Left Google
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
> trading in their old fans for the hope of new fans that probably aren't interested anyway. 100% agree. Two small decisions that enrage me for some reason: 1. Stealing the "+" operator away from searches 2. Making Google+ a (semi) closed platform - when I see a link on HN and I click through and it wants me to login to my google+ account just to view the article, I rage inside. I always want better search, and I've…
If you're enraged over relocating a "+" prefix to a double quoted word, then you might not want to use a post-2005 version of Microsoft Office...
It was not a relocation; + and "" were not equivalent, and Google has made no effort to replace the functionality they removed.
Re: Why I Left Google
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Clayton Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma" was motivated by DEC getting killed. He claims that DEC was a victim of a disruption: a new technology that offered something that didn't seem to be a threat, become successful in other markets and eventually improved enough that it was threat - then it was too late. There, the old technology was minicomputers; the new technology was workstations. The new technology isn…
Here are my thoughts as an engineer at Google. These are my own thoughts, not Google's :) I don't think Google is fighting for its life; people are not defecting away from search to use Facebook's search or Bing or whatever. Right now, Google+ is something like, "let's see what happens if we build a social component and integrate it with our products". It doesn't seem like much right now and it's certainly not killin…
Actually, speaking as an android user who LOVES that I can auto upload my pics to the GOOG, I absolutely hate that Google has any social platform at all.
Because G+ exists it makes Facebook a competitor. Can I easily share my auto uploaded pics with my Facebook friends? Not at all. Can I change where I upload my pics to? (Ie : not picasa) not at all.
Picasa is about lock in. Not about user experience.
Re: Why I Left Google
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
I avoid making generalization and try to stay away of anthropomorphizing companies. But this isn't the first, nor second, nor tenth time I watch Microsoft trying to smear the competition. Which doesn't seem to be common among other companies. It does gives us outsiders the impression that it's part of their company culture to try to sell more by smearing the competition instead of by building better products. How doe…
> Are Microsoft engineers encouraged from top down to do this? I'm an IC, and while there is bit a "boo Google" going on in the kool-aid, we don't sit around shaking our fist at them every moment we get. I try to use the best tools I can, whether it be that made by Google or MSFT or someone else. I look up MSDN documentation using Chrome, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
This might just be a one off case that I heard of, but isn't not using IE shunned at MS? A classmate of mine interned there and was asked to use IE instead of FF. He did end up not hating the product, but I am not sure if the reason was love for IE or hatred towards not-MS products.
Re: Why I Left Google
#149I think the problem with larger companies is that they have something to lose. So fundamentally, almost at a physics level, they become less flexible. They have more momentum in a given direction.
The problem with larger technology companies is that technology don't give a s*. And it's fast. Things iterate quickly. That's just how automation and computers work.
Re: Why I Left Google
#150I dream of a day when the world will wake from this social sharing bad trip. Facebook is not only making the web worse, by breaking most of its core assumptions, but it's destroying one of the greatest companies to arise in recent years.
Google has made accessing the world's information transformatively faster and easier. Facebook has made blogging more pervasive and closed.