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Mourning Google

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Re: Mourning Google

#141

Post by eigenvalue »

What happened with Google has nothing to do with “late stage capitalism” and everything to do with horrible management. You only have to compare Sundar to Satya to see what could have been possible for Google with better leadership and vision. Particularly given the legacy Google had to work with and the early focus on AI which was thoroughly squandered.

Capitalism will start to really work its magic when Google’s operating profit and stock price start falling and all their best developers jump ship to better companies (this part has already started). Then they will fully follow the model trailblazed by such erstwhile innovators as Polaroid, Kodak, and Xerox.

Re: Mourning Google

#142

Post by spintin »

nostrademons wrote: post #68
vanderZwan wrote: post #22

> To me this feels like a big inflection point, because around the stumbling feet of the Big Tech dinosaurs, the Web’s mammals, agile and flexible, still scurry. Tangent: I kinda hate this metaphor. It reinforces this incredibly outdated idea that dinosaurs - or any other extinct life-form - went extinct because they were an evolutionary dead end. (Also, since I do not know a single nerd who isn't into dinosaurs the…

This description actually makes me feel like the metaphor is more apt. The dinosaurs went down because they were large, complex lifeforms that required a vibrant, complex ecosystem to support them. Amidst a fundamental shift to that ecosystem, large complex organisms were the first to go down. This is a general pattern - complex systems are always the first to collapse when there's a shift in the ecosystem, because t…

[flagged]

Re: Mourning Google

#144

Post by dolmen »

cousin_it wrote: post #16

I have a different theory about the cause of the decline. Google 10-15 years ago had a clear idea of how to win: hire the best programmers, give them freedom, and they'll build products that will win in every market. And, well, that hasn't happened. Long before the current talk of Google's decline, there was talk of the Google black hole, where talented people would get hired and their noteworthy output would drop to…

Same as Bell Labs.

Having great technical talents is not enough to have a great business.

Re: Mourning Google

#145

Post by mlrtime »

fidotron wrote: post #42

There are aspects to early Google that have been memory holed because they are no longer fashionable or even acceptable and yet may have been key to early success. Firstly they were allergic to design and marketers. The whole data driven approach yielded interfaces that were gawky but highly functional, the extreme opposite of today. The iPhone caused them to throw the baby out with the bathwater on that. More contro…

>Facebook broke the old SV salary cap agreement

And 1000's of non Google and Meta employees have benefitted from this, so I say this is good.

The argument may be that this invited the wrong type of people to VC. I would say, They were already there, just not as obvious.

Re: Mourning Google

#146

Post by DanielHB »

fancyfredbot wrote: post #111
fidotron wrote: post #42

There are aspects to early Google that have been memory holed because they are no longer fashionable or even acceptable and yet may have been key to early success. Firstly they were allergic to design and marketers. The whole data driven approach yielded interfaces that were gawky but highly functional, the extreme opposite of today. The iPhone caused them to throw the baby out with the bathwater on that. More contro…

> floods of people that should have tormented Wall St who all landed in tech instead Hmm, would these people have inflicted more or less damage on society if they had worked for Wall Street firms?

More

Re: Mourning Google

#147

Post by potatomonster »

rezonant wrote: post #40
coldtea wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The non-normal culture wasn't proving itself." Well, that was what made Google in the first place. That's a hell of a lot of proof. What didn't work out was endless growth for the stockholders and "winning in every market". I'm not sure when companies decided they can't just be fucking happy in their domain (and make the same thing, improve it slightly over time, sell it with a profit, and go on), and have to "win e…

Absolutely. And don't get me started on how M&A has created an absolute monster of technical debt that stares you in the face as a user. Many might disagree, because the trillion dollar veneer Google can throw at things obscures it, but it's there. I used to wonder why Google moves so slow to add features and get literally anything done, but after experiencing the monumental screwup that is Google's underlying unifie…

Joined Google relatively recently and have also worked in/with the payments infrastructure. Couldn’t agree more - absolute nightmare to work in and it’s a small miracle when anything gets delivered at all.

As far as I can tell, seems to be a lack of a cohesive vision from leadership and an absolute willing ignorance of existing challenges, as you’ve mentioned.

Re: Mourning Google

#148

Post by paulryanrogers »

Grimblewald wrote: post #63
vanderZwan wrote: post #22

> To me this feels like a big inflection point, because around the stumbling feet of the Big Tech dinosaurs, the Web’s mammals, agile and flexible, still scurry. Tangent: I kinda hate this metaphor. It reinforces this incredibly outdated idea that dinosaurs - or any other extinct life-form - went extinct because they were an evolutionary dead end. (Also, since I do not know a single nerd who isn't into dinosaurs the…

building on the dino thing, we've currently hellbent in creating a new dino age it seems. Hot ass planet high in the CO2 required to create thriving lush jungles.

There was also much more O2 in the atmosphere. Doubtful that's coming back.

Re: Mourning Google

#149

Post by dolmen »

rezonant wrote: post #86
fidotron wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Gmail was not actually a particularly elegant product design” It popularized instant search, tagging and threading to such a degree you have clearly forgotten how elegant it was!

Features are not product design.

Labels vs folders.

This is product design.

Re: Mourning Google

#150

Post by jbaber »

vanderZwan wrote: post #22

> To me this feels like a big inflection point, because around the stumbling feet of the Big Tech dinosaurs, the Web’s mammals, agile and flexible, still scurry. Tangent: I kinda hate this metaphor. It reinforces this incredibly outdated idea that dinosaurs - or any other extinct life-form - went extinct because they were an evolutionary dead end. (Also, since I do not know a single nerd who isn't into dinosaurs the…

You're right that big dinosaurs only lost because they were big, not because they were an evolutionary dead end of some sort.

From an anthropocentric point of view, though, they seem very dead end. Despite bipedalism and possible warm bloodedness sometimes, they would never use tools. Down so many taxonomic branches, their arms would shrink away and their jaws become enormous. Nothing to motivate any of those lizards to get big brains -- something anthropos value highly :)

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