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Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

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Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#911

Post by berkes »

robin_reala wrote: post #888
berkes wrote: post #870

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IE6 was the browser "most of the world used" too. But really, surely, there was absolutely nothing done well in it. The only reason it was the most used browser was monopoly abuse. And while we can discuss the exact terminology of "a monopoly" and whether the Ie6 hegemony fit in there theoretically, that it came with the most used OS, really was the only reason it was popular. With Chrome it is different. But at leas…

That’s not true. When IE6 launched it was definitely the fastest of its contemporary competitors. The problem with IE6 was not that it was bad at launch, but that it wasn’t touched for five years after launch, and didn’t properly disappear until 2016 or so.

Yes. And in that sense it's also similar to Chrome.

IE6 might have been the best competitor at first. But it certainly did not grow into the 9x% usage and staid there by being the best competitor. It only grew popular once MSFT started using its monopoly to push it.

It really sucked by then, compared to its competition.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#912

Post by donny2018 »

immibis wrote: post #821
strangescript wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies confuse their initial product success with general success. "We made this amazing thing, so everything we do is amazing". The logic is flawed but can carry the company a tremendous distance before becoming unsustainable. Google is reaching the early steps of the unsustainable phase, and their initial product success is finally being threatened via AI. Working on an open source library for 9 years and then c…

I've seen a hypothesis that Google has never created anything new worth anything to anyone, after it created search and ads. Gmail is a clone of Hotmail, and YouTube and Android were acquisitions.

The hypothesis is not wrong. Google is still just ads and search. It’s a utility “nothing to see here” company now.

Paradoxically, Microsoft now looks newer, fresher and more innovative than this.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#913

Post by piyush_soni »

berkes wrote: post #870
piyush_soni wrote: post #840

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then again, everyone says Google is evil to have made their own browser, but most of the world is using it - one would guess they must have done some good things with it (so taking humanity forward in some capacity etc.). Some are even criticizing Google from its own browser - I hate the fact that it made Firefox lose their market share, but I also understand it can't all be because the big corp brainwashed every…

IE6 was the browser "most of the world used" too. But really, surely, there was absolutely nothing done well in it. The only reason it was the most used browser was monopoly abuse. And while we can discuss the exact terminology of "a monopoly" and whether the Ie6 hegemony fit in there theoretically, that it came with the most used OS, really was the only reason it was popular. With Chrome it is different. But at leas…

While I understand your argument about IE6 which was shipped with Windows, Chrome didn't have that advantage for a long time - it's only now that Android phones and Chromebooks are shipped with it, but I don't know of a single person who does not download Chrome on their Windows Desktop too - even now when Edge is based on Chromium! Firefox has always been my primary browser (it still is, I'm typing this in Firefox), but say what you may, Chrome has taken the internet forward in many aspects. I work on an in-browser CAD tool, and I can see how vastly better Graphics performance is in Chrome when compared to Firefox for example (and it's just one example).

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#914

Post by donny2018 »

JSavageOne wrote: post #752
pardoned_turkey wrote: post #86

Ian's post is pretty incisive, although I've read so many of these over the past 15 years or so. And the prescription is always to go back in time. I don't really think that's possible. When you're a newcomer, a disruptor, the whole point is to be different. You're bold, you have a clarity of purpose, you say things like "we're building a new kind of a company" or "the user comes first." But once you achieve market d…

You've just described why once prominent companies fade into shadows of their former glory (eg. Kodak, Blackberry, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft). Definitely not inevitable and could be avoided with better leadership.

Microsoft has managed to resurrect from the dead though. Now it feels like a “fresher” company than Google.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#918

Post by renegade-otter »

Aeolun wrote: post #644
jjulius wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Google Inbox Still so damn bitter about that death.

It’s weird that Gmail never reached that point. Even years later it’s still the same it was 10 years ago. I think after inbox died I just gave up on it and moved to fastmail.

Gmail settings still look like they were made in 2001. Any UX designer will want to pour Clorox into their eyes by just looking at it. Remarkable how Google can just totally ignore it, but then again - email is a very specific product. Once you grab your market share, we are locked in into our emails.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#919

Post by chatmasta »

ivancho wrote: post #800
lupire wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nearly impossible to measure the marginal contribution of someone one in a non sales role.

And yet somehow most people in charge of resourcing and budgeting for projects, teams and companies have some idea of who to hire, how much to pay them, etc. How do you think they do that with something that is nearly impossible to measure? It certainly wouldn't benefit anyone who hires people if those people could estimate their own contribution, or, god forbid, compare it to their compensation. I think there's a te…

> How do you think they do that with something that is nearly impossible to measure?

The floor is mostly arbitrary (see the wage collusion scandal between Apple and Google for an example), and then beyond that it's a question of who is the most productive, effective at getting things done, etc.

So while they do have "something to measure," these metrics can be uncorrelated with profitability - or even negatively correlated with it. It's possible for a productive team to spend their time on an unprofitable project, while another team barely works but ships a profitable product.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#920

Post by ajkjk »

justin66 wrote: post #829
ajkjk wrote: post #767

Earlier quoted context omitted.

imo, they should not resist it. It is shameful to let bad things bad stay in the world unless you really need the self-preservation, and somebody with 18 years of google money does not.

> It is shameful to let bad things bad stay in the world It's incredibly goofy to characterize trashing someone in a blog post as a battle to destroy evil.

Not really? It's a microcosm of the battle, sure, but it's still the same battle. People vs entrenched unaccountable power. Same story everywhere.
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