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The man who killed Google Search?

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Re: The man who killed Google Search?

#311

Post by candiodari »

bbor wrote: post #210
ChuckMcM wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really glad the article came out though, it fills in some gaps that I was fairly confident about but didn't have anything other than my sense of the players and their actions to back up what I thought was going on. I and a number of other people left in 2010. I went on to work at Blekko which was trying to 'fix' search using a mix of curation and ranking. When I left, this problem of CPC's (the amount Google got…

A) I think it’s important to acknowledge that in many ways Google is actively trying to keep CPC low - what they care most about is total spend. A low CPC means an effective advertising network where interested consumers are efficiently targeted. Their position is complex thanks to their monopoly status over online advertising. B) I don’t think it’s fair to characterize recent layoffs as some put-off collapse… critic…

A) This is short-sighted. What you're suggesting is in fact a way to optimize short-term gain over long-term viability. It's pure MBA tactics.

Additionally, it's complete and total oversimplification. If you look at Google's earnings it's pretty damn clear that at least until 2020 they were not just going for maximum total spend, but for a steady, gradual raise in total spend. Not too slow, not too fast. They were NOT taking every opportunity they had, in fact they're famous for systematically refusing many opportunities (see the original founders' letter, but even after that). They were farming the ad market, the ad spend, growing it, nurturing it. Then COVID blew up the farm.

Maybe you're right now, but I do hope they're recovering their old tactics. Because if they maximize it you'd see nothing but scams ... wait a second.

B) Google was built by providing a vision, and getting out of the way of ground-up engineer efforts. "Scaring workers into compliance" IS killing the golden goose.

You can see this in AI. Every story from an AI engineer that ran away from Google is the same. They didn't run away for the money, they ran away because they were getting scared into compliance.

Now AI may make it, or not. I don't know. But this is happening EVERYWHERE in Google. Every effort. Every good idea, and every bad idea runs away, usually inside the mind of "a worker". Not to make them personally maximum money, but it's natural selection: if the idea doesn't run away, the engineer it's in is "scared into compliance", into killing the idea.

Whatever the next big thing turns out to be, it simply cannot come out of Google. And it will hit suddenly, just like it did for Yahoo.

Re: The man who killed Google Search?

#312

Post by Symbiote »

devindotcom wrote: post #271
wayne-li2 wrote: post #222

Even though I agree with what the author is saying, the tone of this article is off putting to me. There are ways to call out people for being bad at their job without resorting to “class traitor” and “ratfucker”. That being said, Google search is 100% dead. I append “reddit” to every Google query to get actual results from people, and I don’t see it on Reddit, I give up on my query.

I disagree. ratfuck is a specific term, not just a general pejorative. and I think class traitor is appropriate here as well. but i get what you're saying. that's the result, pro and con, of the shift away from edited journalism to stuff like ed's newsletter.

I had to look this up — I've never heard it used in Britain.

> Ratfucking is an American slang term for behind the scenes (covert) political sabotage or dirty tricks, particularly pertaining to elections

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking

Re: The man who killed Google Search?

#313

Post by mrguyorama »

supportengineer wrote: post #25
bsimpson wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets better: > a management consultant wearing an engineer costume > his expertise lies primarily in “failing up,” ascending through the ranks of technology on the momentum from the explosions he caused

How can one learn to do this?

Get born into a wealthier family

Re: The man who killed Google Search?

#314

Post by mulmen »

wrs wrote: post #239
mulmen wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boeing was put on the path to failure by James McNerney. He was their first non-engineer MBA CEO. A literal Jack Welch apprentice. He divested Spirit and chose to build the MAX instead of the 797. Dennis Muilenburg was an engineer and handled the MAX crisis poorly but wasn’t responsible for the decision to divest key capabilities from Boeing or to optimize short-term sales over long-term survival by building the MAX…

Good point. But really it was Phil Condit who’s often regarded as kicking off the long slide to mediocrity with the McDonnell merger and move of Boeing HQ to Chicago. And he’s an engineer.

Fair point, thanks for the clarification.

Re: The man who killed Google Search?

#315

Post by Eisenstein »

Certhas wrote: post #300
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies this size die several years before the body hits the floor. They're dead when everyone starts to hate them and someone says "no, look how much money they're making, they're fine." That's the fatal blow, because they think they're fine, and keep doing the things that make everyone hate them. At that point you're just waiting for someone else to offer an alternative. Then people prefer the alternative because…

Any examples of this actually playing out with a company as established as Google? You can read comments like this on many companies... Microsoft (70B$ income), Meta (40B$), Oracle (8.5B$), IBM(7.5B$), SAP (6B$), yet none of them seem to ever actually enter the predicted death spiral. And the internet isn't new anymore. There is no vast landscape of unexplored new technological possibilities, and no garage start up w…

AT&T, GE, AOL, Yahoo, Sony technology (they are a media company now, but they did used to make things that weren't a game console), Time Warner, SGI, Compaq, 3DFx, DEC...

Re: The man who killed Google Search?

#316

Post by chasd00 »

akaij wrote: post #96
romanhn wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I struggled to keep going after "computer scientist class traitor". A very juvenile take that reflects poorly on the author, IMO.

I thought it was a very good description. The person mentioned is responsible for turning one of the most important pieces of software used by billions, into user-hostile experiences that's better for only a few, including himself, just for profits.

> ..just for profits.

well let's be honest, Google was never founded to dig wells or feed starving children. It was only ever for the profits.

Also, in their defense, afaik no one's paychecks have ever bounced. I bet many many people would become very interested in profit and its growth if their direct deposit all of a sudden stopped.

Re: The man who killed Google Search?

#317

Post by jeffbee »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #266
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies this size die several years before the body hits the floor. They're dead when everyone starts to hate them and someone says "no, look how much money they're making, they're fine." That's the fatal blow, because they think they're fine, and keep doing the things that make everyone hate them. At that point you're just waiting for someone else to offer an alternative. Then people prefer the alternative because…

That sounds a lot like Kodak. I remember running into Kodak engineers, at an event in the 1990s, and they were all complaining about the same thing. They were digital engineers, and they were complaining that film people kept sabotaging their projects. Kodak invented the digital camera. They should have ruled the roost (at least, until the iPhone came out). Instead, they imploded, almost overnight. The film part was…

The just-so story about Kodak is one of those things that bugs me. Kodak did own the digital camera market, stem to stern, for years. They did not ignore it. They did, however, invent all that stuff a little early, before the semiconductor manufacturing technology had matured to the point where it could be a consumer good.

The company imploded because it spent all of its time, attention, and capital trying to become a pharmaceutical factory, starting in the mid-1980s.

Re: The man who killed Google Search?

#318

Post by next_xibalba »

I see this as nothing but good news (if it's all true). Unlike in the early 2000s, there are plenty of viable alternatives to Google. The dawn of generative AI could spawn even more. So this means Google is intentionally undermining their competitive advantage at a moment when they least should. Hurray! Either Google will course correct and give us great search or it will bleed users to the likes of Bing, Startpage, Duck Duck Go, Perplexity, etc. etc.

Re: The man who killed Google Search?

#319

Post by wslh »

nbittich wrote: post #102

Everytime I need to make a search on Google, I start to feel anxious, already convinced I'm not going to find anything useful about the problem I'm trying to solve. This often means I already tried everything else. It's a sad situation.a product shouldn't make you feel anxious.

I tried to lie to myself because Google occupies a lot of good emotions and I have great memories, but it is incredible how many searches were replaced by a simple prompt to ChatGPT, except when I add a site:reddit.com to my Google search.

For example, if I want to benchmark products I go directly to some subreddits and make my own benchmark spreadsheet.

Re: The man who killed Google Search?

#320

Post by chasd00 »

sophacles wrote: post #274
dekhn wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I woudl not sign that, and would instead call myself a computer programmer. That is an absolutely absurd set of sentences to sign one's name to.

Why?

on example i see, "When needed, my skill and knowledge shall be given, without reservation, for the public good"

who decides they're needed? me, or some other form of authority? "shall be given"... as in no compensation just forced to work? "the public good", what does that even mean? like software for homeless shelters or national defense? Does designing AI for targeting enemies for bombing count as public good? In many eyes it does and in many eyes it does not.

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