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Google calls in help from Larry Page and Sergey Brin for A.I. fight

nytimes.com

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Re: Google calls in help from Larry Page and Sergey Brin for A.I. fight

#441

Post by bagacrap »

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #354

Sundar's weakness is the cause of this, and unfortunately Page and Brin have never been extraordinarily effective executives. Google's early product and culture was fantastic for building one has emerged as one of the most powerful network effects in the web, but nobody can doubt the unbelievable mismanagement of Google X, Google Brain, DeepMind, countless other cancelled products. The answer is a new executive who g…

indeed. Sundar has said that he takes responsibility for the mismanagement of the company's resources over the last few years, but it's not clear what that actually means.

I have some faith in Ruth Porat but they need a c-suite member who has an equivalent eye for product.

Re: Google calls in help from Larry Page and Sergey Brin for A.I. fight

#442

Post by formercoder »

osullip wrote: post #368
steveBK123 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, once you are past the free tier.. GSuite is close to the monthly cost of Office365, and Google sheets is not even close to Excel. You can basically program mini applications in Excel vs a basic spreadsheet app for medium sized spreadsheets that multiple people can edit in their browser with version tracking.

I keep pulling data into Google sheets because of this >=REGEXEXTRACT("My favorite number is 241, but my friend's is 17", "\d+")

I just wrote a quick regex vba function when I was last in a job on Office.

Re: Google calls in help from Larry Page and Sergey Brin for A.I. fight

#443

Post by AlbertCory »

WalterBright wrote: post #419
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't right. In the real world every effort saps a little bandwidth from the CEO/top execs, potentially harms the brand, potentially causes the org to calcify. Better off handing the money back.

One solution with that is to spin off a company that does these things, while keeping majority ownership.

My friend Jerry and I explored this topic in detail using Xerox PARC as an example [1]

I think Walter is right that spin-off is the right strategy, and (not very well known) Xerox actually did do that with a lot of PARC innovations. Just not with computers.

[1] https://www.albertcory.io/lets-do-have-hindsight

Re: Google calls in help from Larry Page and Sergey Brin for A.I. fight

#444

Post by bagacrap »

dpkirchner wrote: post #236
iLoveOncall wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more convincing when it is wrong?

It won't be wrong forever, there's a good chance they'll figure out how to evaluate sources and provide more useful results. And besides, the bar is low -- Google search results for some topics (e.g., programming related) are quite poor, filled with garbage and clone sites.

isn't "evaluating sources" the exact problem of web search that Google has been throwing billions of dollars at for many years, with an equivalently dedicated and motivated horde of SEO specialists on the other side? How is chatgpt going to easily solve that overnight?

Re: Google calls in help from Larry Page and Sergey Brin for A.I. fight

#445

Post by AlbertCory »

steveBK123 wrote: post #407
lumost wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s tricky - companies with high margin businesses are loath to scale into low margin businesses. It makes the firm look more like a commodity than it is. Meanwhile startups in large enterprises are often desperate to grow revenue to show relevance.. leading to low margins.

It just seems like they wasted their lead, margin and talent. Bell Labs produced a lot of interesting stuff with their monopoly profits. Apple R&D seems to come up with lots of interesting new product lines. GOOG bought Nest and managed to become an also-ran in home automation. GOOG other bets might produce something with Waymo, but when.. all this autonomous car stuff is continuously 5 more years, every year. That's…

Just give it time, Steve. 5 more years should be about right :)

Re: Google calls in help from Larry Page and Sergey Brin for A.I. fight

#446

Post by AlbertCory »

WalterBright wrote: post #391
AlbertCory wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have Excel, and of course Sheets. I actually find Excel to be too full of features (same with Word). It's just too hard to figure out a simple thing like having the top row be column headings (yes, I do know how to do it, but it was not immediately apparent). "Someone, somewhere, might want to do this, so let's put it in" is obviously what's happened with Office for 30 years now.

Excel is the #1 programming language by a wide margin, and it evolved rather than was designed.

Exactly. Every release some PM or senior engineers wants to add some features, for no doubt good reasons, and it all gets shoehorned into the UI. Thus the rule I generally espouse, of

"Simple things should be simple. Complicated things should be possible."

turns into

"Everything is possible, but nothing is simple."

Re: Google calls in help from Larry Page and Sergey Brin for A.I. fight

#447

Post by [deleted] »

vageli wrote: post #94
_Algernon_ wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of the focus on AI, I'd like to see something like Shortcuts on iOS, which allows users to automate frequent tasks, and due to being developed by Google it would be a first class citizen of the OS, for which app developers will add integrations. That way it at least serves the user, and not a paperclip maximiser for engagement.

Google has something similar to Shortcuts, called Action Blocks.

[deleted]

Re: Google calls in help from Larry Page and Sergey Brin for A.I. fight

#448

Post by leoqa »

steveBK123 wrote: post #325
mathteddybear wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the "Google other" revenue is $25 billions, how many unicorns is that? As for what googlers told you, keep in mind that they are pretty loyal - they have that Lamda chatbot as if an employee perk, and only one of them leaked a sample.

$25B is 1/2 the revenue of Apple "wearables and accessories or 1/3 the revenue of Apple "services". $25B is also less than what Amazon now makes on ads, which should especially given Google pause. Consider that Amazon started as simply an online retailer and has successfully spun up other business lines that now account for 50% of revenue across online fulfillment / 3rd party services, physical stores, subscription s…

Technically I think you would shrink the bottom line, since profit is (top) revenue - (bottom) expenses.

Re: Google calls in help from Larry Page and Sergey Brin for A.I. fight

#449

Post by [deleted] »

ghusbands wrote: post #322
irq-1 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like experts criticizing Wikipedia, before it dominated. Mostly true and mostly accurate information is useful beyond what we normally think. Remember how people use to criticize the newspapers? They'd say they read an article on a subject they new something about and were shocked at how bad it was. Then they'd conclude that the rest of the news was just as bad. What wasn't acknowledged was the utility of…

While I use ChatGPT myself, its ability to invent true-seeming information is insidious. One of the early popular examples was asking ChatGPT what the downsides are of generics in TypeScript, and it cited that they're not compatible with some browsers/runtimes. It's entirely believable, but entirely wrong, and actually quite hard to confirm either way with internet searches. It's the sort of thing people would readil…

[deleted]

Re: Google calls in help from Larry Page and Sergey Brin for A.I. fight

#450

Post by [deleted] »

echelon wrote: post #390
no_butterscotch wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this not reflect badly on Sundar? To have this "surprise" freak-out catch them off guard? To bring in the old leadership so publicly?

In my frank opinion, Sundar is the worst performing of the FAANG leaders. He reminds me of Ballmer's flat growth, but perhaps much worse - we'll know the true scope of the damage soon. His leadership has put Google's single biggest revenue stream in the cross hairs of competitors, and Sundar should have seen it coming. He's done nothing to secure Google's future or broaden the company's revenue sources. Perhaps the b…

[deleted]
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