531–540 of 939 posts
What a turn from all the “Google search is good, actually” stuff that was popping up around here a ~year ago. I don’t think anyone can still say that with a straight face - it’s nearly an unusable product unless you are searching for a product you want to buy, and even then, not that great.
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What is definition of dead? 15 years later they have huge majority of traffic share and lots of revenue.
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…
Google continues generating profits out of inertia and a lack of a better alternative.
It went for “don’t be evil” to “a necessary evil” (just until something a little better appears).
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> I hope, rather - that technically minded people who are advocating for the use of ML understand the short comings and hallucinations. The people I see who are most excited about ML are business types who just see it as a black boxes that makes stock valuation go vroom. The people that deeply love building things, really enjoy the process of making itself, are profoundly sceptical. I look at generative AI as sort of…
We get it, you're skeptical of the current hype bubble. But that's one helluva no true Scotsman you've got going on there. Because a true builder, one that deeply loves building things wouldn't want to use text to create an image. Anyone who does is a business type or an executive producer. A true builder wouldn't think about what they want to do in such nasty thing as words. Creation comes from the soul, which we al…
Google is doing something similar now[0], both from a searchers and a site owners perspective. Barry Schwartz regularly posts Google updates on his site[1], for over a decade no less. Since August 2023, those updates have been reaching the 500 mean comment range with many updates reaching 700-900 comment range. And this has been happening for 8 straight months! People have been robbed of their livelihoods and many ha…
I look forward to this one as somebody with a personally vested interest!
More seriously, Ed Zitron's podcast Better Offline is great for those who enjoyed this article. I love his opinionated perspective even when I don't wholesale agree (though in this case I do), and I find him a breath of fresh air in tech journalism. I work in a ... similar company and find his perspective to be spot on about growth hacking degrading product health over time, and the baffling track record of many an SVP.
The author says very few people knew who Raghavan was. Clearly he isn't a computer scientist. It is more an indication of the ignorance of the writer than anything else.
Raghavan's contributions to Computer Science and, Search in particular, which were made long before he joined Yahoo!, were word-class. That is the reason he was so sought after by search engine companies. His text book on Randomised Algorithms is a classic.
Calling Raghavan a 'McKinsey' consultant is just a pure ad-hominem attack. The purpose seems to be to vilify him by association. Which is utterly ironic considering that he never worked for them or was ever a 'consultant'
As for his contributions at Yahoo!, I don't think he had any significant influence on the management direction that company took. In my opinion, absolutely no one at Yahoo!, CEO downwards, had much control over their destiny.
Yahoo! was a clusterfck all around, with the primary problem being its utterly dysfunctional board, and unfortunate share ownership structure that made it beholden to the demands of Wall St, resulting in a parade of CEOs. Personnel churn was at such a high volume, that I, an individual contributor usually seven levels below the board, calculated that the average tenure of my leadership chain to the board changed once every fifteen days.
So blaming Raghavan for what happened at Yahoo! is just stupid.
I have never worked for Google, but as an outsider, I don't disagree with the assessment, that Google Search was 'getting too close to money.' But to assign blame in this manner smells like a hit piece.
Managers, take their marching order from their bosses, ultimately this is the board of the company. If the board feels the need for revenue growth, no manager, CEO included has the power to resist too much. They advise against it, but in the end they will either need to to their biding or be fired.
Edited for typos and grammatical errors.
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This is like that scene in the Simpsons where Lisa tries to teach Homer that correlation does not equal causation by telling him that a rock keeps bears away, and he responds by wanting to buy the rock. Correlation isn't causation. Don't just buy that someone is fully to blame because someone told you they were fully to blame.
Zitron spends paragraphs trying to convince the reader that Google Search sucks now mostly because of the efforts of one person. I don't understand the correlation isn't causation argument in this context. If no one ever tried to convince others of their thesis, with numerous arguments, what's the point of writing?
He could have said “perhaps there is a disconnection here” but rather opted to volunteer that he is in fact Very Smart and others are Very Dumb. With a position like that any writing that’s meant to convince the reader is pointless as there exists only ontological truths (things that he already agrees with) and pointless ramblings of cartoon buffoons (things that he does not already agree with)
It's April 23rd, 2024, and I am still looking for a good, reliable, honest and simple search engine. All I want to do is search. No AI. No ads. No shopping. Please don't "Answer my question." I enjoy doing my own original research, thanks. I'm entirely willing - wanting even - to pay for it. Currently Kagi has my $, but I'm saddened and frustrated that they're not even focused on Search, they're focused on AI[1] and…
Kagi is still a good search engine though. Hopefully they continue to improve that part too, even if they do AI stuff.