31–40 of 348 posts
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
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.
Google's seemingly endless new array of products with just as many being discontinued at any one time is an internet meme at this point. Often in threads when Google announced their latest hotness, potential customers are sarcastically guessing at how long until it is killed (some of those guesses ultimately turning out correct). I've never worked at Google, but it looks like shambles from the outside. Kind of remind…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
I think it's more about transitioning from the founder-type CEO driven by vision to the maintainer-type CEO who only cares about pleasing the board to keep his position as long as possible.
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.
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…
Their search engine is really hard to replace, not just because of the quality, but also because of how ubiquitous it is.
YouTube is the second largest search engine on the planet and has the largest mindshare of any website on the internet.
Android is "the" platform pretty much everyone accesses the internet.
Cloud could do better (it's 3rd distant in the race against MSFT and AMZN), but nevertheless a huge opportunity.
Buffet and Munger were correct when they commented about Google saying they'd never seen a wider moat in their entire career.
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.
He might have not fought in the trenches of engineering. But I've seen his congress testimony. He is such a humble and kind guy while still being a nerd, one of us. If I worked at Google, I definitely would be glad about him being CEO.
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?
Factions develop, tensions mount, and you get angry employees leaking confidential information constantly. Most of the negative press the public has heard about Google in the past year is a direct result of leaks.
It just doesn't feel as "fun" anymore.