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Susan Wojcicki has died

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Re: Susan Wojcicki has died

#161

Post by AmericanChopper »

lchengify wrote: post #73

Was shocked to hear this news. I worked for Google years ago but I was in the NYC office, so we didn't run into the YouTube folks much. Opinions about YouTube may be mixed here on HN, but it is objectively one of the most successful businesses in tech or media to emerge in the past 15 years. If it weren't buried inside Alphabet, Youtube would be worth on the order of $400 billion, more than Disney and Comcast combine…

> It's also not a business that rested on it's laurels.

I would say it’s more a business that rests on its monopolization of the market. As a product there’s plenty I like about YouTube, but it dominated the market through the use of many highly anti-competitive strategies, and has what many would consider (and what may well be proven to be) an illegal monopoly.

You can’t deny its impact, but to give such high praise to the management seems rather misguided to me.

Re: Susan Wojcicki has died

#162

Post by pavlov »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #152
pavlov wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube’s algorithm feeds increasingly radicalizing content to young people. It makes celebrities of people like Andrew Tate and is a primary enabler of fringe belief bubbles. Any time someone posts a YouTube link to a political discussion, it’s guaranteed to be the worst nonsense that pries on people who “do their own research.” (No matter if they’re left or right on the political spectrum, there’s endless junk on Y…

That is not an “algorithm” unique to YouTube. See 24/7 news channels for a much earlier example. It is simply the nature of loosening standards on broadly available media, and throughout history, even strict standards have not always prevented the “bad” stuff from getting through.

News channels don’t show random 30-minute programs created by viewers themselves. YouTube does.

Fox News and CNN may have low journalistic standards, but at least they have some. They also have liability. (Fox paid $787 million to a voting equipment manufacturer as settlement for lies they published in relation to the 2020 election.)

YouTube has neither. Their algorithm will happily promote any nonsense that has traction. The lies that cost Fox $787 million continue to circulate on YouTube unabated — and an untold number of other lies too. Alphabet has no reason to prevent this.

Re: Susan Wojcicki has died

#163

Post by pavlov »

Nemrod67 wrote: post #141
pavlov wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The timeline of the election coincides with the development of the vaccines. Moderna reported positive phase 3 trial results in November 2020. FDA’s review was completed in December and an emergency authorization was granted. The full trial results were published in medical journals a few months later, around the same time as Biden entered office. So maybe it had nothing to do with Trump/Biden and simply was a reacti…

[flagged]

What’s your specific beef with Moderna’s three-phase clinical trials?

The New England Journal of Medicine in February 2021 published Moderna’s results indicating 94% efficacy. Further studies confirmed it. If you know better than the reviewers at a leading medical journal, it would be interesting to know why you’re so qualified.

Re: Susan Wojcicki has died

#164

Post by lvl155 »

lchengify wrote: post #73

Was shocked to hear this news. I worked for Google years ago but I was in the NYC office, so we didn't run into the YouTube folks much. Opinions about YouTube may be mixed here on HN, but it is objectively one of the most successful businesses in tech or media to emerge in the past 15 years. If it weren't buried inside Alphabet, Youtube would be worth on the order of $400 billion, more than Disney and Comcast combine…

[dead]

Re: Susan Wojcicki has died

#165

Post by nailer »

asah wrote: post #64
daveed wrote: post #49

I'm not a Googler, but would still ask commenters to show some respect for the person who died, and save your opinions about youtube for another day.

In particular, Susan was a lovely soul and specifically deserves all of our respect. If you want to hate, then hate the game, not the player (especially in this case).

The people in this thread and elsewhere online are generally arguing that she was not a lovely soul.

Re: Susan Wojcicki has died

#166

Post by sytelus »

lchengify wrote: post #73

Was shocked to hear this news. I worked for Google years ago but I was in the NYC office, so we didn't run into the YouTube folks much. Opinions about YouTube may be mixed here on HN, but it is objectively one of the most successful businesses in tech or media to emerge in the past 15 years. If it weren't buried inside Alphabet, Youtube would be worth on the order of $400 billion, more than Disney and Comcast combine…

YouTube is absolutely the business that is resting on laurels, just like Google Maps and Gmail. Sometime I wonder if these products have any real active development teams at all besides ads. YouTube massively screwed with users by forcing poorly executed botched migration to YouTube Music. Even outsiders can see that this was entirely internal Google politics which powerful people like Wojcicki should have been able to avoid but she didn't. It just makes me wonder if these billionaire leaders of Google products really care anymore about anything. There is visibly an utter lack of hunger at the top and these people clearly should have been spending more time with family leaving these products with more hungry minds. YouTube recommendations are crap and it's still amazing that in 2024 just clicking one video will fill up most of recommendations with same thing. It never got around to incentivize creators to produce concise content and to this day creators keep producing massive 30 min diatribe that could have been done in 3 mins. TikTok took full advantage of this but YouTube CEO just kept napping at the wheel. Ultimately, the original product mostly just kept going but the measure of success is not about retaining audience but what it could have been if there was an ambitious visionary leader at the helm.

Re: Susan Wojcicki has died

#167

Post by wslh »

More familiar information about her and her successful family [1]. The book is available here [2] (the Kindle version is more expensive than the physical book editions though).

Interesting to mention about the Polgar sisters again [3].

Z''L.

[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-godmother-of-silicon-va...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/How-Raise-Successful-People-Lessons/d...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r

Re: Susan Wojcicki has died

#168

Post by cheeseomlit »

TMWNN wrote: post #102
lchengify wrote: post #73

Was shocked to hear this news. I worked for Google years ago but I was in the NYC office, so we didn't run into the YouTube folks much. Opinions about YouTube may be mixed here on HN, but it is objectively one of the most successful businesses in tech or media to emerge in the past 15 years. If it weren't buried inside Alphabet, Youtube would be worth on the order of $400 billion, more than Disney and Comcast combine…

>Opinions about YouTube may be mixed here on HN Who? Who has a negative opinion about YouTube? The occasional "My kids watch too much of it" != "mixed opinions" about the site in general.

I like a lot of content hosted on YouTube but that doesn't mean I like YouTube, especially under Google.

Re: Susan Wojcicki has died

#169

Post by nailer »

threeseed wrote: post #43
dredmorbius wrote: post #28

[flagged]

When you look at X today and Reddit in years past, YouTube was well run. And her legacy will be the incredible and I would argue positive impact it has had on society.

Why? I would absolutely have community notes over political censorship every day.

Re: Susan Wojcicki has died

#170

Post by tsimionescu »

sytelus wrote: post #166
lchengify wrote: post #73

Was shocked to hear this news. I worked for Google years ago but I was in the NYC office, so we didn't run into the YouTube folks much. Opinions about YouTube may be mixed here on HN, but it is objectively one of the most successful businesses in tech or media to emerge in the past 15 years. If it weren't buried inside Alphabet, Youtube would be worth on the order of $400 billion, more than Disney and Comcast combine…

YouTube is absolutely the business that is resting on laurels, just like Google Maps and Gmail. Sometime I wonder if these products have any real active development teams at all besides ads. YouTube massively screwed with users by forcing poorly executed botched migration to YouTube Music. Even outsiders can see that this was entirely internal Google politics which powerful people like Wojcicki should have been able…

> It never got around to incentivize creators to produce concise content and to this day creators keep producing massive 30 min diatribe that could have been done in 3 mins.

Why on Earth would you want shorter videos? The best thing about YouTube is that it's one of the only places you can find quality medium-to-long-form content.

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