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More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

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Re: More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

#21

Post by rms_returns »

hcnews wrote: post #8

Sundar is neither a founder nor has been a practicing Engineer. That's gotta hurt a company like Google which is mostly Engineering driven. I guess Google at this point just keep churning through systems because Engineers are incentivized to show impact and rarely end up creating new good products. Adding tons of new engineers is also probably hurting their overall quality and velocity.

I've read somewhere that Sundar's biggest achievement (and rise in power structure) relates to the saving of day by using practical business sense.

Back in around circa 2006, Microsoft one day suddenly decided to remove Google search and replace it with Bing on their default browser, IE (which was still number one back then). This threatened Google's revenues to a considerable extent as online search is one of the major source of their income.

At that time, it was Sundar Pichai who was in the forefront of managing some quick OEM contracts with Dell, HP, etc., so that Google toolbar was installed by default on all their computers. Google toolbar ensured that users were shown a confirmation dialog and were given the option to make Google search the default again! This later ensured Sundar's rise in power and respect that ultimately made him CEO one day.

One can of course argue that Google is such a superior engine compared to Bing that the users would have visited google.com anyway (which will also result in that option to make it default). However, its also true that most users will not take the pain of changing their setup if it already works! So who knows, if Sundar's intervention hadn't happened at that time, maybe Bing and Google would be on an equal footing today!

EDIT

Source: Straight from the horse's mouth (Jeff Nelson, Chromebook inventor and former Google employee): https://www.quora.com/What-did-Sundar-Pichai-do-that-his-pee...

Re: More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

#22

Post by pm90 »

ajmbbs wrote: post #17

Having read the article, only 54% of Googlers view their compensation is better than what they could get from another company. I find it surprising. Who else pays more than Google does? Can only think of Facebook, but even then not sure.

Lot of SV based companies compensate quite generously. The competition for good talent in SV is immense. When there's money on the table, companies _will_ fork it up.

Re: More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

#23

Post by xfitm3 »

ajmbbs wrote: post #17

Having read the article, only 54% of Googlers view their compensation is better than what they could get from another company. I find it surprising. Who else pays more than Google does? Can only think of Facebook, but even then not sure.

Many smaller companies do. If you can lead and multiply the existing staff you can earn more. The downside is that you have limited runway and might have to hop around.

Re: More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

#24

Post by nostrademons »

Cyclone_ wrote: post #18
ajmbbs wrote: post #14

Is this a bit similar to what Microsoft went through in the early 2000s?

In both cases they went from being run by a CEO who had experience as an engineer to someone with more of a business background

Also from a founder to someone who had risen through the ranks as a manager & executive.

Re: More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

#25

Post by dawhizkid »

ajmbbs wrote: post #17

Having read the article, only 54% of Googlers view their compensation is better than what they could get from another company. I find it surprising. Who else pays more than Google does? Can only think of Facebook, but even then not sure.

Netflix (which from my understanding just pays very high salaries but minimal stock or stock you buy at discount)? also a lot of people that are boasting of high comp have high comp because the value of the stock they were initially granted increased over time with rising stock prices. Will be very very curious to see how total comp numbers trend during a recession.

Re: More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

#26

Post by gautamdivgi »

ajmbbs wrote: post #17

Having read the article, only 54% of Googlers view their compensation is better than what they could get from another company. I find it surprising. Who else pays more than Google does? Can only think of Facebook, but even then not sure.

I think Netflix does and I believe it’s all cash unlike the cash/stock split that google does. I got that from levels.fyi so not sure how accurate the information is.

Re: More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

#27

Post by ur-whale »

Once upon a time, Google used to be run by engineer types.

When Larry and Sergey retired and handed the reins over to Sundar, a standard issue McKinsey drone whose technical contributions over the span of his entire career are close to nil, it was game over for the original Google culture.

In fact, there is a theory floating around that he was chosen because someone very smart at Google predicted the huge oncoming controversies around privacy, data collection, manipulative monopolistic practices, and how overly powerful Google was becoming in general.

Visionless, mild-mannered, bland, milquetoast, "we need to be incredibly thoughtful about this" Sundar was the perfect choice as a CEO to weather that particular storm, by staying under the radar as much as possible by projecting a "don't worry we're the good guys, see how inoffensive I am myself" image (as opposed to "I'm the CEO bitch" Zuck types).

Truth be told, the strategy has worked to a point: Google is in far less trouble than e.g. FB.

But there is a price to be paid by handing over the wheel to someone who was specifically chosen for how inoffensive and uninteresting he is.

Re: More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

#28

Post by jerkstate »

ajmbbs wrote: post #17

Having read the article, only 54% of Googlers view their compensation is better than what they could get from another company. I find it surprising. Who else pays more than Google does? Can only think of Facebook, but even then not sure.

Netflix, or Amazon if you're really top-tier, maybe LinkedIn or Apple (counting RSU packages). There are a good handful of companies that are offering sky high comp right now.

Re: More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

#29

Post by ludwigschubert »

trixie_ wrote: post #19

Google's Achilles heel is search and ad revenue (80%). Which is sad because they've been trying to diversify and find another major source of income for 20 years now. If a better search engine comes along and people switch over, then google won't be able to maintain its empire and it could fold, or how would you like to pay $10 a month for a GMail and Google Maps combo access package? It could happen a lot easier and…

I’m aware this has become a cliche on HN, but I’d be happy to pay that—if it helped align incentives better. Maybe if a company as big and ad supported as Google would make that step, it could become more accepted to pay for software again?

Re: More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

#30

Post by _i____ii_______ »

I thought every CEO's ultimate vision was to increase shareholder value. Does the vision of company really come from one person's declarations? Just look at what the company is doing as a whole and you can get a picture of what the company's vision is. In the case of Google how can you can conclude otherwise that the vision of the company is domination in any arena possible to dominate?
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