Google CEO Salary • Hacker News Board

Re: Google CEO Salary

#51

Post by retrocryptid » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 3:16 AM UTC

pfannkuchen wrote: post #12

retrocryptid wrote: post #2

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…

I think the problem with “lesson” is that it sounds like you started out in the wrong. An important part of corpspeak is never directly accusing anyone of being wrong or directly admitting having been wrong yourself. Acquiring learnings does not have this connotation (possibly because it is a nonsense word).

That sounds legit. The last thing we want in corp-speak is to establish culpability. "Experiences" might work instead, but it sounds very Californian.

Re: Google CEO Salary

#52

Post by retrocryptid » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 3:35 AM UTC

mnsc wrote: post #29

pfannkuchen wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem with “lesson” is that it sounds like you started out in the wrong. An important part of corpspeak is never directly accusing anyone of being wrong or directly admitting having been wrong yourself. Acquiring learnings does not have this connotation (possibly because it is a nonsense word).

Thank you for making me realize what I don't like about "lessons learnt". I don't care about corpspeak but when you are an agile team involved in continous learning it's very important to be able to tell someone that they are in the wrong. They might have put in two weeks of hard work devolving a poc in a area the team know little about only to present it wider and get the feedback that this won't work because of x,…

You would think we would have a word that better expresses something like: "you did some quality work, but it was insufficient to relieve us of our collective ignorance."

And in a way that your manager won't say something like "but this violates our corporate principal: 'be right, often.'"

Maybe there's a word for this in German. They have a number of words for seemingly specific situations. And I'm not above Introducing a few more foreign words to our corporate lexicon. We're already using Fingerspitzengefühl, Schwerpunkt and Feierabend.

Re: Google CEO Salary

#53

Post by jamestimmins » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 6:49 AM UTC

vernon99 wrote: post #45

jamestimmins wrote: post #24

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?

Maybe, but hard to argue that any of these except LLMs have potential to be huge moneymakers. Teams is only huge because it's free and bundled with other Microsoft products, not because it's a huge product in its own right.

Re: Google CEO Salary

#54

Post by cudgy » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 12:04 PM UTC

danielrpa wrote: post #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.

This assumes that Google is able to identify the highest talent. Given the poor performance of the company (relative to its size and funding) and your point that they chose one of the weakest leaders to lead them, are they truly effective at choosing talent?

Re: Google CEO Salary

#55

Post by cudgy » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 12:08 PM UTC

praptak wrote: post #16

nothrowaways wrote: post #6

At least Google cloud was not a bad idea.

This was a case when following a trend was the good thing to do. But you don't make great companies by only following trends.

That’s how Apple became great: following trends and executing them better.