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Google CEO Salary

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Re: Google CEO Salary

#31

Post by LarsDu88 »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #27
almost_usual wrote: post #22

What was the last big successful product Google released that’s still around? I honestly don’t know. Search, Gmail, Maps, GCP, and Android is all before 2010.

I would kill for 2010-era search. I suspect it's now intentionally bad, but I don't think I understand the business strategy behind it being so awful. There was a time when I could remember two uncommon words in the same reddit post from 5 years prior, and searching those would bring it up as result #1. The scary thing is, I suspect that search is still their most recent successful product. Just that it's not meant t…

It wasn't necessarily Google's search that got worse.. it's that SEO became better and better leading to an arms race situtation.

The same thing will happen with the internet and LLMs. The next 5 years will probably be the golden age of LLMs followed by a flood of copyright protectionism and regulation.

Re: Google CEO Salary

#32

Post by pipes »

Barrin92 wrote: post #18
xiphias2 wrote: post #4

None of these were bad ideas. Sundar can't execute because he doesn't know how to do programming and doesn't understand the details. He would never pass an engineering interview at Google, or any other software company (especially not OpenAI).

Marissa Mayer could code and I don't think it had a particularly helpful impact on her job as CEO. CEOs do not need to be technical experts, and most highly technical people, at least in my experience, do not excel in management positions and tend to micromanage too much. Whatever problems Google has, Sundar's technical background has nothing to do with it. Which either way with an engineering and science background…

Might be the exception to the rule, but bill gates, extremely technically proficient and an amazing leader. I've read multiple accounts of staff who worked with him saying it was astonishing the level of detail he knew about their projects.

Re: Google CEO Salary

#33

Post by nnx »

TrackerFF wrote: post #28

Unrelated, but I was researching executive salaries the other day. The CEO of the Norwegian Pension fund, which has $1.39 trillion in AUM, earns a $660k annual salary - no extra compensation as far as I could find. Alphabet has a £1.36 trillion market cap, with a $200m+ CEO comp. Makes one wonder if you really need to pay CEOs astronomical comp packages to attract the "best talent".

Despite the huge AUM, I'd think being CEO of Norwegian Pension Fund has much less degrees of freedom (and therefore actual success/failure responsibilities) than being CEO of Google.

Re: Google CEO Salary

#34

Post by iamnotsure »

If everybody earned the same amount, money would be pointless. Therefore differentiation in income is related to the complexity of economy. Putting artificial caps in place is well... artificial.

Re: Google CEO Salary

#35

Post by TrackerFF »

nnx wrote: post #33
TrackerFF wrote: post #28

Unrelated, but I was researching executive salaries the other day. The CEO of the Norwegian Pension fund, which has $1.39 trillion in AUM, earns a $660k annual salary - no extra compensation as far as I could find. Alphabet has a £1.36 trillion market cap, with a $200m+ CEO comp. Makes one wonder if you really need to pay CEOs astronomical comp packages to attract the "best talent".

Despite the huge AUM, I'd think being CEO of Norwegian Pension Fund has much less degrees of freedom (and therefore actual success/failure responsibilities) than being CEO of Google.

Yes, they have certain guidelines to follow - both ethical (can't invest in certain types of governments), and related to responsible management. He obviously can't liquidate the whole portfolio, and say fuck it, let's go all in on crypto.

Re: Google CEO Salary

#36

Post by nologic01 »

Google (and the dominant adtech mode of financing tech development) has long entered the cash cow period.

Discussing the minutiae of decision making and compensation of individuals who's primary job is to keep that stale show running is not particularly interesting from the perspective of tech development and any positive impact on peoples lives. (BTW What is the last time Google surprised you positively?)

It may be interesting to discuss this though in the context of broader corporate governance and market structure / competition and incentives. Is that extra × 100 factor in compensation that accrues only to oversized entities really necessary to incentivise individuals to work in private for-profit enterprize?

I give it to you that if you had 10 mini-Googles competing and 10 mini-Sundars receiving 1/10 in compensation at least one of them would be worth the money.

Re: Google CEO Salary

#37

Post by jsnell »

riffraff wrote: post #15
xiphias2 wrote: post #4

None of these were bad ideas. Sundar can't execute because he doesn't know how to do programming and doesn't understand the details. He would never pass an engineering interview at Google, or any other software company (especially not OpenAI).

How were Allo and Duo not bad ideas, considering Google already had multiple duplicates of those?

Allo was instant messaging with users identified by phone numbers rather than accounts. That was something a lot of consumers clearly found compelling (Whatsapp, iMessage), Google had no product for, and would not have been something that could be retrofit as a feature in their existing chat app.

Duo was two person video calls optimized for mobile phones, and allowing calling via phone number. Basically Facetime and Whatsapp. Again, a hugely popular product category that they did not have a product in, and with a paradigm that was not compatible with their existing video call app.

That's not to say these were good ideas, or that the projects were well executed. They were me-too copies of other companies' products, and possibly without enough understanding of what made those products popular. But the "duplicates" criticism is just lazy, and makes it seem that you're just parroting memes and did not know anything about the apps other than their names.

Re: Google CEO Salary

#38

Post by jimsimmons »

jsnell wrote: post #37
riffraff wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How were Allo and Duo not bad ideas, considering Google already had multiple duplicates of those?

Allo was instant messaging with users identified by phone numbers rather than accounts. That was something a lot of consumers clearly found compelling (Whatsapp, iMessage), Google had no product for, and would not have been something that could be retrofit as a feature in their existing chat app. Duo was two person video calls optimized for mobile phones, and allowing calling via phone number. Basically Facetime and…

Their stupid names and simultaneous introduction killed them.

This is classic Google culture where Director A and B decide to get into the same category of product and refuse to work together. Unfortunately there is no adult in the room to put them in the place.

Tbf every company suffers from this. Look at multi tasking on iPad as an example. Classic Jobs might have been the only one who could cut this out

Re: Google CEO Salary

#39

Post by drewcoo »

xiphias2 wrote: post #4

None of these were bad ideas. Sundar can't execute because he doesn't know how to do programming and doesn't understand the details. He would never pass an engineering interview at Google, or any other software company (especially not OpenAI).

To all of the downvoters and naysayers replying to the parent:

it's the difference between technical, engineering leadership and bean-counters or MBAs.

It used to be that we expected the leaders of tech companies to be technical (old time HP or even Microsoft. At some point that transitioned into non-technical people running software companies and I agree that does not sit well with me either.

That said, Google is not a software company or a tech company. It's an advertising company.

Re: Google CEO Salary

#40

Post by TrackerFF »

pipes wrote: post #32
Barrin92 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marissa Mayer could code and I don't think it had a particularly helpful impact on her job as CEO. CEOs do not need to be technical experts, and most highly technical people, at least in my experience, do not excel in management positions and tend to micromanage too much. Whatever problems Google has, Sundar's technical background has nothing to do with it. Which either way with an engineering and science background…

Might be the exception to the rule, but bill gates, extremely technically proficient and an amazing leader. I've read multiple accounts of staff who worked with him saying it was astonishing the level of detail he knew about their projects.

Could probably add Eric Schmidt to that list.
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