11–20 of 20 posts
Oh it wasn't quick, this has been building for the better part of two decades.
... it's only a little over 20 years old? You think it's been going down hill since early 2000s?
The Decline and Fall of the Google Empire? I'd say Larry Page set the seeds for this when he was CEO for the second time and chose Sundar to be his successor while also forcing the company into a disastrous social platform when they should have focused on cloud while shutting down all the fantasy projects. Larry picked Sundar because he was a consolidator who got the other execs to stop fighting and was smart enough…
It is an analogous development to a caste society, where merit/performance really don't matter. Don't think it is an accident that it happened to Google. Makes Satya look so much better, for now. Cultural background matters a ton, even if it is very frowned upon to mention it nowadays (unless it is about Germans, Italians, etc.).
But by the time I got out of grad school in 2007, I was like "meh, it's mostly an ad platform, not so exciting; maybe someday". Now, there is almost nothing you do to get me to work at what I see as a company whose capacity for destruction is only limited by its manifest lack of any coherent vision. Fortunately, they seem to be tripping on their own feet recently, but if they ever get it together, it could be bad for everybody.
Some of that is probably down to my own changing priorities and increasing cynicism about our industry's effect on the world. But most of it is, I think, attributable to a change in Google. But what changed? Was there a specific moment when Google stopped being "cool", for lack of a better word? Or was it an accumulation of small problems? Were they never actually cool, and they just lucked into a couple neat products?
In high school in the late 90s, I desperately wanted to be part of Google: they were the smartest people around, and seemed to be thinking 10 moves ahead of everybody else. They represented the digital utopian future our bearded elders had promised. But by the time I got out of grad school in 2007, I was like "meh, it's mostly an ad platform, not so exciting; maybe someday". Now, there is almost nothing you do to get…
The Decline and Fall of the Google Empire? I'd say Larry Page set the seeds for this when he was CEO for the second time and chose Sundar to be his successor while also forcing the company into a disastrous social platform when they should have focused on cloud while shutting down all the fantasy projects. Larry picked Sundar because he was a consolidator who got the other execs to stop fighting and was smart enough…
It is an analogous development to a caste society, where merit/performance really don't matter. Don't think it is an accident that it happened to Google. Makes Satya look so much better, for now. Cultural background matters a ton, even if it is very frowned upon to mention it nowadays (unless it is about Germans, Italians, etc.).
1. You make a claim but no attempt to back it up, or even explain what you mean. Comments that do that contribute in no positive way to discourse, but do contribute to echo chambers. Fortunately, HN is not one, on this topic at least. Let's keep it that way.
2. Your last statement sounds like a flimsy excuse, at best, and includes what sounds like a thinly veiled complaint against privilege being called out. TBH, that last bit actually sounds like a cheeky dog whistle, but I'm not American so my read could be extremely wrong.
Disclaimer / Source: Indian, from India, in India, which is also the sole entry on the list of countries where I've lived. Also, (lucky enough to) never have known my caste.
But I don't level all the blame at google, I also place some blame the folks who create web sites and yes sure it's nice to see 100 to 500 words thrust up amongst images all pretty like, and fancy tables and interactive, but it's not so bright to not also include text output options for other search engines as well as those who still use simple text browsers or older OS systems.
I'll cheer the day a startup offers a search engine for the world wide web (ie not just for special browsers and geolocations) ... and simply ignores sites that are clever enough to print up your browser is out of date or location no good, instead of just offering a non javascript entry of however few words they have ... Of course some pages are interactive and probably not suited ... but then again, they usually don't contain much info or have chosen that format so as not to share that info without a good scrape of the user trying to access it.