The Final Days of Google

theodp writes "Robert X. Cringely speculates about The Final Days of Google, making a compelling case that when the end comes, it is going to be an inside job. To find the founders of a Google-beating start-up, Cringely suggests looking no further than the thousands of entrepreneurial geniuses currently working for Google, who will inevitably be driven to leave the company to realize the dreams of their rejected ideas. 'The real money is in taking existing ideas and twisting the idea just far enough to make it work in a fantastic new way. Think Google vs. AltaVista; Apple vs. all previously existing laptops and mp3 players; YouTube vs. all previously existing video sites, etc. In addition to ideas, you need creativity, resources, connections, and luck -- none of which appear to be in short supply among Google worker bees. Much of the next influx of ideas to Sand Hill Road will come not just from former Google employees, but also from groups of former Google employees who are planning their future companies over free sushi and Diet Coke late at night in Google cafeterias.'"

Comments

So.....

[Anonymous Coward]

An innovative startup made of ex-google staffers will kill google?

But Google wasn't the end of MS, MS wasn't the end of IBM, the markets big. A new player doesn't mean the 'end' of old players.

Re:So.....

[Aliriza]

The former employes of real big firms usually can not build firms that are as strong as their old firms.Cause they are born into the empire , but small firms are not empires and if you act you are an empire you only fall down.

Yeah, no...

[daBass]

Google does one thing really well - search. Many of the ideas brewing are not a search replacement, they are either something completely different or an add-on to search.

I am sure Google ignores many of the 20% ideas that are actually quite good, but I doubt the ones they ignore are the kind of things that make search better; that is the kind of thing these geniusses spent 80% of their week on, after all.

Interesting, but...

[rm999]

"Cringely suggests looking no further than the thousands of entrepreneurial geniuses currently working for Google, who will inevitably be driven to leave the company to realize the dreams of their rejected ideas. "

To destroy Google, someone would have to beat them at what they make their money on - search and ads. First off, 95% of the people in the company probably do not work in this division, and don't have the background and aren't surrounded by it enough to get ideas about it. The 5% who do probably could not start a company without running in trouble legally given all the Google trade secrets they are privy to.

Re:Interesting, but...

[Moraelin]

First of all, Cringely is... Cringely. The same guy who recently claimed to know that IBM will fire 150000 US workers... out of 130000 total. Or then looked all wrong at a job search site and said IBM is looking to hire 15000 workers... just to fire them right back again. Never mind that a quick ask at IBM or a better look at those jobs (e.g., a job for a programmer on an IBM mainframe, isn't actually a job _at_ IBM) would have told him that they're only hiring 3000 people. He's also the author of such brilliant predictions as that Intel is buying Apple, when Apple switched to Core CPUs. Or the guy who years back predicted that people on the internet don't need more than webpages, email and chat, because someone at AOL told him that's what their users do. (Never mind that at the time AOL was offering such abysmal throughput and latency that it was unusable for anything else.) Etc, etc, etc.

Cringely makes a good living talking out of the ass, so the sanest thing is to ignore him. Just because it was a slow enough day on Slashdot to let him get the front page, doesn't mean you have to take it as news. Have a good chuckle and move on.

Second, well, there's more to Google than having the right idea. They also know how to _keep_ talented people working there, and how to invest in R&D done by talented people. Both are skills lost on todays "your job could be the next to go to India" and "let's fire some people to make Wall Street happy" PHBs.

If you will, Google's _real_ secret sauce isn't even one of good engineering, it's one of good management. And that'll be hard to steal because most PHBs try to just pretend it doesn't exist. They're looking for something else that must be the secret, because, don't be silly, noone ever got rich by treating their employees right and offering customers what they want. So before they'd be able to steal it, they'd first have to acknowledge that it exists. It's like getting your car stolen by someone whose whole life revolves around pretending that cars don't exist. It's just not going to happen.

Even if it were to get stolen, I'm not betting the big money on it being stolen by someone who currently is a R&D guy at google. From my experience, most nerds are not good managers, and don't do well when (self)promoted to management. It's simply different skills. It's like promoting a passionate pilot to be an archaeologist. Chances are his interest, experience, effort, etc, were spent on the former, not the latter.

In fact, the absolute worst PHBs I've ever had to work with... were brilliant (ex)nerds. It's guys who once were able to code a whole OS via the front toggles on a mini, and come with brilliant algorithms that cut a one week batch job to a couple of hours job. (When most of your memory is on a magnetic tape or drum, such kinds of optimizations are actually very possible.) Then someone went and moved them to a job they don't understand and which gives them an ulcer: management.

So if anyone did leave Google with a brilliant new idea... let's just say that for 99% of them, let's hope they can do it alone, because they won't be able to be good managers.

flawed thinking

[petes_PoV]

'The real money is in taking existing ideas and twisting the idea just far enough to make it work in a fantastic new way

So that's what Microsoft did, huh?

Maybe it's just a combination of pure dumb luck (being in the right marketplace at the right time) and the tenacity and money to keep going.

New ideas are ten-a-penny. It's having the business acumen and vision to get them off the ground and make them profitable that's the real skill.

Cringely may want to do a little more reading

[jomas1]

Check out this old joelonsoftware.com piece on what good managers do for to get the most out of powerhouse developers:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Development Abstraction.html

The most pertinent part of the article I've linked is:

Management's primary responsibility to create the illusion that a software company can be run by writing code, because that's what programmers do. And while it would be great to have programmers who are also great at sales, graphic design, system administration, and cooking, it's unrealistic. Like teaching a pig to sing, it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.

Microsoft does such a good job at creating this abstraction that Microsoft alumni have a notoriously hard time starting companies. They simply can't believe how much went on below decks and they have no idea how to reproduce it.

Some of the perks that google gives its employees are quite devious. Why risk your money and time starting your own venture when you have it made at google?

Why do you think that the most innovative and radical ideas come from unemployed hungry developers? Who has made a concerted effort to hire said hungry developers? That's who I'd bet on to hurt google's bottom line.

Bungee..

[ekran]

It is normal human perception of reality which makes us believe that everything that goes up, must come down. Still, with proper adaptive leadership I don't see why google should be around for the next (insert huge number here) years. Most companies downfall seems to be happening because their leaders can't adjust fast enough to the current market, just look at the American motor industry. Still, I don't see why we shouldn't need to search for things in the future, so the market will be there. And as is claimed, google has a lot of brainpower and even if a few of them leaves the company, it's not going to be the downfall of the company.

Same theory didnt hurt Microsoft

[sproketboy]

I heard this same thing years ago about Microsoft. Yes, some smart employees left and created startups which were largely partnered with them. Same will be true for Google. I don't see any problem for Google here.

Re:Google is EVIL

[GTMoogle]

That is... the most boring, non-threatening evil ever.

Oh no! Don't let Google pay them the agreed-upon amount with shares that recently increased in value! Oh, the humanity!

Re:look further

[maxume]

Paul Graham is devilishly good at keeping Paul Graham in a position where he gets enough attention that he can make money by making sure that he gets lots of attention. His essays regularly devolve into 'something happened to me, and I can explain the universe because of it'. He writes in an informative tone, but more often than not, his thesis is just an opinion(so he is actually trying to persuade you that he is correct). There are lots of people with millions of dollars sitting around trying to figure out how to turn it into more than millions, he isn't terribly good at it.

Does Google have Stupid written on its forehead?

[Aging_Newbie]

The reasoning in this article is badly flawed. While nobody knows, or if they know, can't say what is in agreements, policies, and procedures within Google, one thing we can assume is that Google is not stupid. Their ideas have to be protected, developed or not. They were smart -- rather than have undocumented ideas developed in spare time, Google made it part of the job. So, there have to be the documents that describe the ideas for, if nothing else, the review that selects the best. Why should Google throw away those documents? -- they don't throw away my email.

So, my bet is that Google is or will become a resume stain for anybody who was in a development role there. Venture capitalists will be unsure whether Google would come down on them if they developed the idea. Why go with that risk when there are plenty of other ideas clamoring for support? If somebody does pitch and develop an idea, Google can sue them and there are no pockets deeper than their's. If you carry it farther, how would one prove that the idea didn't originate from Google, since obviously you can't appeal to them for proof. So, I think Google is safe and probably they have better control of their IP than most any other company.

Re:Easier to Kill Intel or Microsoft than Google

[The One and Only]

The algorithmic model is as old as Babbage and Lady Ada, that's 150 years old!

You'll be really shocked when you find out how old integers are.