Ballmer Says Google's Growth Is 'Insane'

eldavojohn writes "Steve Ballmer spoke to the Seattle PI this week, commenting that Google's pace of employee growth is 'insane,' and the company has few successful businesses outside of Internet search and advertising. He referred to Google's non-search efforts as 'cute.' Google's current number of employees is nearly doubling each year. 'I don't really know that anybody's proven that a random collection of people doing their own thing actually creates value.' Mr. Ballmer went on complain that, in general, competition for good programmers has become an issue. Even 'hedge funds' are looking for skilled coders, making the HR fight between the two companies that much more challenging."

Comments

Microsoft jokes aside,

[LibertineR]

Ballmer is completely correct.

Disclaimer: I worked for Microsoft

Google's approach to growth right now resembles something like a gold rush, assuming that they know where the gold really is. I dont think they do exactly, but are hedging their bets on a number of ideas. The search engine makes money, but Google knows that they will need to do more, and I hope the phone rumors are true, but even so, just gathering a lot of great programmers together under one unbrella does not guarantee innovation.

I think Microsoft proved that good programmers dont necessarily make great programs. Every one of Google's businesses are cases of doing someone else's idea better. Cant wait to see what is coming, but for the moment, I cant see the fault in Ballmer's logic.

Re:Microsoft jokes aside,

[qwijibo]

All large organizations work that way. There is no way to have a cohesive vision for so many people. No one really knows where the gold is either. Anyone who has one good cash cow can spend a lot of time and money trying to find the next one. Having 99 out of 100 projects completely fail is perfectly acceptable if the 1 that works makes enough money to cover all of the failures. Small companies try to find the next big thing, but need a high success rate or they go out of business. Large companies are no better at finding the next big thing, but they are better at sticking through the multitudes of failures that it takes to get something right that pays off to make it worthwhile.

Businesses don't need to be innovative. They just need to keep money coming in. It doesn't really matter if you try to do one thing well or if you exploit your market position to get away with doing something barely good enough. In either situation, you get the money and that's all the business cares about. Doing something better than your competetor is good enough to bring the money in.

Balmer hates Google, film at 11

[MythoBeast]

Um, why is this news? "Insane" is hardly a quantifiable value. So Balmer doesn't understand Google's business plan. Maybe Google is just building a brain trust while looking for the next big thing. Balmer is also doing a pretty good job at mischaracterizing Google's effort by calling it "a bunch of programmers doing their own thing", as if they're working completely without direction. I repeat, why are Balmer's completely uninformative ravings about Google news?

Have some cheese with that whine

[OglinTatas]

First, Microsoft can treat its employees better if they are having trouble attracting the caliber of employees google hires. Or they can continue as they are doing now, and petition Congress for more H1-B visas. But if they do that, then it really is more about getting good programmers cheaply rather than attracting the highest caliber programmers at any cost.

Second, if Mr. Balmer is correct, and Google doesn't have a sound or sustainable business, then it really doesn't matter; in a few years Google will implode, and Microsoft can sweep up all the Google alumni it wants.

Re:Slasdotters Say Ballmer Is 'Insane'

[daeg]

Investors have a lot riding on the fact that Google will eventually return more than just a very high stock price for them. While stock prices make money short term, the base of investing is long term returns. I have a feeling that, in a few years' time, if Google isn't returning anything, their stock could face a major drop.

Something that is scary, though, is that Google has a very unique position in the marketplace. They know trends before they are public trends. With their stats program that is popular with startups, they can see new sites and new ideas before they get big. That is tremendous power, in both terms of capital (buying out early), and could be used for good of "evil" very easily. Imagine if they started selling that data to investment groups. "Based on search queries it looks like MSFT might face a major wave of backlash, you should short their stock." They are in position to even influence the global market through Google News and search results ranking.

Re:Slasdotters Say Ballmer Is 'Insane'

[_Sprocket_]

I've often wondered why MSFT see Google as a threat, MSFT make office software and Operating systems. Google dont make OS's (well not yet) and sure Google have a web app that can read office docs, which is really more for convenience, so at least until recently the two companies have been after completely different things.

The problem for Microsoft is two-fold. Everything Microsoft does ties in to their core business. And that core business is under constant threat.

Everything Microsoft does points back to their OS. And in turn, their OS is the platform on which they build everything they do. The concept of lock-in is not only about immediate profit, but it also ensures that they have a clear path ahead of them. Its easier to see and plan for the future if you control the present. Anything that does not feed the need for a Microsoft OS stack is a threat to this strategy.

Why would Microsoft worry about losing control? Ask IBM what its like. Consider a time where IBM seized the microcomputer market - a time where "IBM PC" was a product reference and not a place-holder for a box produced by one of several thousand possible vendors with an unknown combination of commodity components. IBM is still a power-house in the Industry. But they no longer control it. It's hard to not only make money in a commodity market, but it's also hard to control one. And when you don't have that control, it is difficult to determine what directions such a market is going to take. What happened to hardware may very well come to pass for the OS as well.

Re:Time will tell.

[spaceyhackerlady]

The question of the 20% time is very interesting. One of the innovations Enron touted was how its employees were free to work on whatever projects they wanted. Then it turned out Enron really was only good at trading energy, and not good enough at that. On the other hand, Google is delivering. Things like the phone will determine how deep they get. I think skeptical optimism is the stance to take.

The reality is that anybody worth hiring is going to be curious about things, will have their own interests, and will have their own research projects on the side. The only decision an employer must make is whether such projects will be on the employee's own time and expense, or is it something the employer can support (i.e. related, even if only tangentially, to the business). It may, after all, turn out to be the Next Big Thing and make the employer a buttload of money.

To paraphrase a line from JAG, anybody who wants to mess around with things that badly should be messing around for us.

...laura who messes with Linux and GPS on company time, but who pays for her own telescopes

Re:Slasdotters Say Ballmer Is 'Insane'

[Richy_T]

The issue in the past is that when any company has become sufficiently succesful in a particular IT field, Microsoft has moved in and either bought them out or thrown money at developing their own version. Any company that hopes to stand up to Microsoft has been unable to fund the fight and must either give in or go down fighting. So far.

What we're hopefully seeing here with Google is a company that can face up to and outperform Microsoft and continue to do so while Microsoft burns through money trying to put them out of business. Then end of Microsoft's ability to do whatever it wants and put down whoever it wants would be a great boon to the world of computing.

The slow uptake of XP and the potential even slower uptake of Vista only feed into the process. Truly we are living in interesting times.

Rich

Re:Slasdotters Say Ballmer Is 'Insane'

[nasch]

Microsoft, they've got two monopolies( one created from the other ) which bring in over 60% of their profits and all other business ventures lose money.

Then where does the other 40% of their profits come from?

Absolutely, he's the perfect nutbar

[JudgeFurious]

Balmer is, in my mind the perfect nutbar to be in charge of Microsoft at this point in time. While their foundation slowly erodes beneath them he sits up on top of the company and makes us laugh while still being easy to hate. He makes a fool out of himself with his stupid antics (chair tossing, monkey dancing, and ridiculous over the top hyperbole) and all the while he maintaines the "condescending asshole aura" that we've come to expect in Microsoft leadership.