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Google CEO Salary

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Re: Google CEO Salary

#41
post #39
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 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

#42
post #37

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…

but surely it would have been easier to add "call contact" to Hangout/Meetings than create a separate app for the specific feature? It's not like you have separate contact lists, and I mean, that is how it works now[0].

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

#43
post #33

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.

Perhaps, at the same time if they DO fail badly, they would likely be replaced. Not as much in Google's case, where the highly paid visionary CEO has missed the greatest trend of the decade and still makes 200M. I could have equally missed the same trend myself for only 20M if they had given me the opportunity.

Re: Google CEO Salary

#44
I believe Sundar will be remembered as one of the weakest CEOs of his generation, and a person who caused actual harm to humankind by wasting one of the highest concentrations of talent (Google circa mid-2010s) that has ever existed. Imagine what these people could have achieved elsewhere if not lured by Google to be subjected to Sundar's incompetence.

Re: Google CEO Salary

#45

The "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…

The point I think is that they _could_ and _should_ have been large bets and this makes them missed opportunities. At least most of those could have been massive cash cows (see Slack, Teams, Superhuman but 100x, etc). And they just failed to have a consistent product vision top-down, having all the pieces needed. Who to blame if not the CEO?

Re: Google CEO Salary

#46
post #32

Earlier 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.

That's a good point, I think he wrote lex?

Re: Google CEO Salary

#47
post #41
post #39

Earlier 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.

My company pays its monthly Google cloud bill using a Chase credit card, and we get maximal credit card points because Chase classifies Google as an advertising company. Go figure.

Re: Google CEO Salary

#49

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".

The first job of the CEO is to transfer as much wealth from the company to themselves as they can get away with.

Re: Google CEO Salary

#50

I 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…

Sure, ask the person who understands indo-european languages to join us.
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