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 no…
Google CEO Salary
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Re: Google CEO Salary
#42Earlier 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…
So, no I don't think this is a lazy criticism, the fact that a new app was created instead of adding a feature to something that already existed is a managerial mistake because it creates extra confusion for users weakening the existing products[1].
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVFda0I8uW0&t=1s
[1] Sometimes it makes sense to extract a smaller app from a big one, but this is not the case.
Re: Google CEO Salary
#43Unrelated, 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
#44Re: Google CEO Salary
#45The "failed decisions" list is bizarre and does a terrible job supporting the argument. - Gmail Inbox - Directing company’s resources towards messaging apps. (Remember Allo, Duo. Exactly) - Virtual assistants - Now LLMs None of these were large bets, nor do they relate to the major cash cow that is search. Further, LLMs are in their verrrrrry early days. We don't know how much impact they'll have or how they'll impac…
Re: Google CEO Salary
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Re: Google CEO Salary
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 no…
That's funny, Google Cloud Platform sure doesn't seem like advertising. I haven't done super extensive research on the subject or anything, but at first glance it seems closer to something like AWS, which I think is also not an advertising platform.
Re: Google CEO Salary
#48Re: Google CEO Salary
#49Unrelated, 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".
Re: Google CEO Salary
#50I like that someone said this, but I really Grit my teeth when someone says "learnings." I have no problem with using preferred pronouns or saying "chestfeeding" instead of "breastfeeding." I don't understand it, but if it's making you uncomfortable, I'm totally fine with changing that part of my vocabulary. But "ask" and "learn" are verbs. You "ask questions" or "make requests" and you "learn lessons." You do not "h…
You think you're a pedant, but you haven't yet encountered someone with such a thorough knowledge of Indo-European grammar that could tell you that not only is nominalizing participles common in our family of languages, it is so common you see it in practically every language in the family and it doesn't violate any rules of grammar. "beating" is a present participle, like "learning." It would be fine to say, "the be…