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Google+ Head Vic Gundotra Leaving Company

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Re: Google+ Head Vic Gundotra Leaving Company

#241

Post by snsr »

r0h1n wrote: post #213

Google+ and Gundotra's lasting, and perhaps perverse, legacy to Google is the "social glue" that forcibly connects together most Google services. That Google+ never quite managed to take on Facebook is obvious. A much bigger and intangible cost, IMHO, is the falling trust in much bigger Google products like search, YouTube etc. as Google+ was shoved down user's throats. To wit, I don't use Google+, but thanks to its…

> To wit, I don't use Google+, but thanks to its bundling I've also stopped logging in to any Google service on my laptop except on a strict need-to basis

This has been the unfortunate consequence for me as well.

Re: Google+ Head Vic Gundotra Leaving Company

#242

Post by snsr »

higherpurpose wrote: post #57
lewisflude wrote: post #4

Why would someone leave a company immediately if it was under good terms? Or is it just the case that this wasn't public until today?

If his reason for leaving given here is real, then they probably knew for about a month: https://plus.google.com/107117483540235115863/posts/MFrDF3W4...

Thanks for the link. As an aside, I've always found it baffling that G+ URLs are a cryptic as the above, particularly as they are 301'd to be more legible after the fact. e.g. The above link is redirected to https://plus.google.com/+VicGundotra/posts/MFrDF3W4RJL

That page also weighs in at ~12MB.

Re: Google+ Head Vic Gundotra Leaving Company

#243

Post by ersii »

r0h1n wrote: post #213

Google+ and Gundotra's lasting, and perhaps perverse, legacy to Google is the "social glue" that forcibly connects together most Google services. That Google+ never quite managed to take on Facebook is obvious. A much bigger and intangible cost, IMHO, is the falling trust in much bigger Google products like search, YouTube etc. as Google+ was shoved down user's throats. To wit, I don't use Google+, but thanks to its…

I find myself in the same situation, the more Google+ leaks out into their other products in an obtrusive way (ie. with "big fanfare") - the less I use those Google services.

I have however not seen many people near me, be so annoyed at this as I am. The most complains I hear about is the YouTube pop-up (that never seem to go away); Calling you out on choosing to use your real name instead of your YouTube-nickname.

Re: Google+ Head Vic Gundotra Leaving Company

#244

Post by arunc »

When I get notification that one of my friends (who is on Facebook full time) has joined new on Google+ after all these years, that shows that Google+ has failed miserably to reach the mass. I don't use Hangouts these days. Its only Facebook messenger (on Android/desktop).

Re: Google+ Head Vic Gundotra Leaving Company

#245

Post by Pxtl »

saidajigumi wrote: post #34

> Former CEO Eric Schmidt admitted in an interview at the D conference in 2011 that he missed the boat on the rise of identity on the Internet. > “I clearly knew that I had to do something, and I failed to do it,” he said. “A CEO should take responsibility. I screwed up.” I think Eric screwed up in a deeper way that this quote admits. Google+ came up at a time of broader dissatisfaction with other social networks, pa…

I agree. Google + came out at the right time, maybe a little late, but it had some solid ideas - the idea of Google building a consistent social layer across their entire space was great.

The problem was that they screwed up so very much with it. It was far too opinionated, and at the same time obsessively asked permission for every agonizing detail. They soft-pedaled it and then backtracked on the promises implicit in this soft-pedaling.

Just such a complete mess.

To me, the big failure was (1) failing to let users properly manage their identity with pseudonym-anonymous aliases and whatnot and (2) failing to let content-posters manage their spaces. Let Bloggers and YouTubers and whatnot have better control of the moderation of their comment threads.

Re: Google+ Head Vic Gundotra Leaving Company

#246

Post by Pxtl »

cookiecaper wrote: post #86
qq66 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real-name policy itself was only known by a small group of people. However, the idea that G+ would be a place for a your One True Identity was directly attacking Facebook, which is not the way in which Facebook was vulnerable. If they had built the entire product (not just the real-name policy) around the idea of pseudonyms or ephemeral identities or multiple identities like Reddit, they may have found more succe…

Google doesn't want to be reddit.

But with their ownership of Blogger and YouTube, they were far better positioned to build a Reddit/Disqus/whatever than they were to build a Facebook.

If they had started with the concept of "we're going to build a unified social layer for all our content-posting platforms and then integrate that into a Facebook-like environment" it likely would have gone far better for them than what they did, which is the reverse (build a Facebook-like environment and then use it as a unified social layer for all their content-posting platforms).

Re: Google+ Head Vic Gundotra Leaving Company

#247

Post by Pxtl »

joe_the_user wrote: post #144
bane wrote: post #56

IMHO Google+'s principle problem is that it's multiple efforts all under the same name umbrella. This is confusing to users and seems to have been confusing to Google. It's a longer-than-twitter public broadcast messaging system/social network/photo sharing/single sign-on/half a dozen other things. There's some great ideas in there. Having a subscription style feed of people I want to follow, and their long-form post…

IMHO Google+'s principle problem is that it's multiple efforts all under the same name umbrella. This is confusing to users and seems to have been confusing to Google. I wouldn't put it that way. A way to manage multiple efforts in one place could easily have been appreciated. The problem was G+ was an effort to mold/carve the multiple accounts people had with Google into a single Facebook like thing. And it worked b…

Exactly. G+ as a common social platform for the Google space was a great idea... but a platform can't be opinionated, it has to leave customization of the experience to the users and the content-developers that are hosting G+-based conversations.

It started in the wrong place, a Facebook converted into a commentary platform instead of vice versa.

Re: Google+ Head Vic Gundotra Leaving Company

#248

Post by pnathan »

qq66 wrote: post #109
cookiecaper wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google doesn't want to be reddit.

It's not that they should try to be Reddit -- it's that they should try something different. Big companies attack other big companies all time time, and it almost never works when the attack is head-on at the point of the competitor's greatest strength (things like Android are the exception, not the rule). The best way to attack a competitor is with a product that doesn't initially even look like a competitive offeri…

Actually, I would read iPhone vs Android as not a true head to head. Androids have always trended towards budget and have generally been a shift towards allowing telecom crapware on them. Two of Apple's weaknesses. :)

Re: Google+ Head Vic Gundotra Leaving Company

#249

Post by arkj »

wpietri wrote: post #223
arkj wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sounds interesting! who is this guy? or he prefers to be anonymous?

I'd feel weird naming him without asking. But if you want to read more about this sort of approach, there's a book called Servant Leadership , plus a lot of literature around it. It's also the basic approach in Lean Manufacturing.

Thanks for the lead.

Re: Google+ Head Vic Gundotra Leaving Company

#250

Post by tptacek »

x0x0 wrote: post #219
magicalist wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

non-competes are void in California.

only up to a certain seniority level

[citation needed]

There are things execs do that line employees don't that can presumably make a CA noncompete binding, like, for instance, accepting significant consideration specifically in return for a noncompete. But I don't believe seniority is itself a factor that can make a noncompete binding.

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