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To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo

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Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo

#81

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

cma wrote: post #63
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. This is hardly new. I have been at Google since the mid 2000s and this stuff has been around at least since then. There was also a similar training when I was at Microsoft. Btw, in the trainings I've taken, it's not just about avoiding specific words, but avoiding the thoughts behind those words. Our goal shouldn't be to "dominate the competition/market." The goal should be creating compelling experiences and pr…

> Btw, in the trainings I've taken, it's not just about avoiding specific words, but avoiding the thoughts behind those words. It could be to keep the trainings themselves from looking bad during discovery.

You can always come up with a sinister motivation for a good act. The question is whether there's evidence to support that surmise. I guess that's why sometimes it's best to look at the effects of the system rather than the intention behind it. Do the training actually have the effects that one would desire from them, if one had good intentions? At least in my case, the answer is yes. I have never thought about my work in terms of besting the competition. But then again I'm nobody important so what I think doesn't matter all that much. It would be interesting to know the mind of the executives whose thoughts on this subject might actually have an impact. Maybe during the upcoming lawsuits we'll be able to see more deeply into what they have been thinking.

Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo

#82

Post by jquery »

jacquesm wrote: post #64

I'll help out here with a much simpler definition: A monopoly is a company that you can not avoid doing business with. Microsoft, Google -> monopolies. Apple -> not yet. That way we can save us all some time debating how many angels can dance on a pin. Note that both Google and Microsoft have worked very hard to make it that way, it is only fair that they should accept the flip side of that coin. If you break email t…

I think this maps to most people’s non-legalistic idea of what a monopoly is too.

Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo

#84

Post by nkingsy »

im3w1l wrote: post #55
cortesoft wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is ok for a startup to want to 'kill' competitors. Regulators don't care if companies WANT to establish a monopoly. They only care if they succeed.

What if years later you do succeed?

Regulators are looking for language that abuses an existing monopoly. Intent to create a monopoly is not evidence for the existence of one.

Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo

#85

Post by dodobirdlord »

dmitriid wrote: post #39
Afforess wrote: post #8

Google (okay, Alphabet) is the only big tech company that I can imagine would ultimately _benefit_ from an antitrust breakup. Google keeps killing low-to-medium profitable smaller product lines and tools because it can't spin them off successfully. Google can't spin off tools successfully because their internal codebases are deeply reliant on assumptions about Google's infrastructure and Google internal libraries, et…

> perpetually killing small products to protect Google's secret sauce. I doubt Google kills those products because it can't spin them off because of secret sauce. Google kills those products because: - they are not profitable enough (profitable enough for Google ) - they don't drive engagement and ad sales enough (once again, not enough for Google ) - it offers no promotion paths for people who may run them, so it's…

This is really the core of it. If you run the numbers, Google makes something like $1 million of profit per year for each engineer at the company. If a product has a 10-person engineering team and isn't bringing in $40 million / year at a 25% profit margin then there are just better things for those engineers to be working on and the product will likely be shut down so that the team can reprioritize.

Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo

#86

Post by throwawaysea »

All the big tech companies do this, and yes, it is not OK. These organizations are too big, wield too much power, and are like governments unto themselves. For some reason, they have not had the same public perception and have avoided labels like "conglomerate" that have stuck to other companies like Samsung.

Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo

#87

Post by klodolph »

dmitriid wrote: post #39
Afforess wrote: post #8

Google (okay, Alphabet) is the only big tech company that I can imagine would ultimately _benefit_ from an antitrust breakup. Google keeps killing low-to-medium profitable smaller product lines and tools because it can't spin them off successfully. Google can't spin off tools successfully because their internal codebases are deeply reliant on assumptions about Google's infrastructure and Google internal libraries, et…

> perpetually killing small products to protect Google's secret sauce. I doubt Google kills those products because it can't spin them off because of secret sauce. Google kills those products because: - they are not profitable enough (profitable enough for Google ) - they don't drive engagement and ad sales enough (once again, not enough for Google ) - it offers no promotion paths for people who may run them, so it's…

Additional reason: all the infrastructure is changing underneath these projects.

Let’s say you have a Google product for feeding people, let’s call it “Google Feeder”. Now, you need big piles of food to feed people, so you build it on top of “Google Pile System” to manage all of those piles. People like Google Feeder, but it’s not successful enough to fund an engineering team.

At some point, Google Pile System gets replaced by a new system for managing piles, called Humongous. Now, what happens to Google Feeder? You’ve decide that it’s too expensive to migrate it from Google Pile System to Humongous, but the problem is, if you want to spin it off into a separate company, you’d need to migrate it off Google Pile System anyway.

Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo

#89

Post by dehrmann »

jackfoxy wrote: post #69
Afforess wrote: post #8

Google (okay, Alphabet) is the only big tech company that I can imagine would ultimately _benefit_ from an antitrust breakup. Google keeps killing low-to-medium profitable smaller product lines and tools because it can't spin them off successfully. Google can't spin off tools successfully because their internal codebases are deeply reliant on assumptions about Google's infrastructure and Google internal libraries, et…

It is worth noting when Standard Oil was broken up John D. Rockefeller's net worth went up. The sum value of the new oil companies soon exceeded the value of the old monolith. Also for reasons I cannot explain, investors happily watch the failed conglomerate model re-invented time and time again, even though history shows conglomerates running their divinions into the ground.

Be careful not to confuse monopolies with conglomerates. You're right conglomerates mismanage (usually neglect) some divisions, but that wasn't the case with Standard Oil. Esso wasn't a neglected divison; oil is oil.

The new companies being more valuable is interesting. It helped that they were regional monopolies. Maybe people thought the added competition drove growth on its own. Maybe the new companies became crowded trades because rather than just being a bet on oil, it was a bet on oil and who would win in oil.

Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo

#90

Post by lr4444lr »

jackfoxy wrote: post #69
Afforess wrote: post #8

Google (okay, Alphabet) is the only big tech company that I can imagine would ultimately _benefit_ from an antitrust breakup. Google keeps killing low-to-medium profitable smaller product lines and tools because it can't spin them off successfully. Google can't spin off tools successfully because their internal codebases are deeply reliant on assumptions about Google's infrastructure and Google internal libraries, et…

It is worth noting when Standard Oil was broken up John D. Rockefeller's net worth went up. The sum value of the new oil companies soon exceeded the value of the old monolith. Also for reasons I cannot explain, investors happily watch the failed conglomerate model re-invented time and time again, even though history shows conglomerates running their divinions into the ground.

Increased profits from downsizing the labor force as a short term result is probably a very attractive motivator.
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