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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.'"
Why do yo think most of the ideas are not search related? I would have thought that if you live and breath search engines for 80% of your week, working on something else would probably be enjoyable but I'm sure you can't just switch it off like that.
People used to say that Yahoo and AltaVista did search really well. Then Google came along and changed the game. If an ex-employee of google figures out a way to cut out all the spam rubbish on the search results then I'm sure almost everyone would switch overnight. It's that risk of 1 truly great idea being missed that should worry google investors. Internet search users are a fickle bunch and I'm sure they'd switch without a second thought which in turn would hit google's paid for advertising hard.
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To destroy Google, someone would have to beat them at what they make their money on - search and ads.M
That's not at all true. Google likely won't be destroyed by being out-Googled - they'll be destroyed by failing to anticipate a change in the computing landscape that someone else is positioned to take advantage of. That's the way evolution usually works. That's the way that Google is "beating" (displacing for relevancy and growth) Microsoft - not by competing head-on but by being better positioned for the times.
Also at some point Google's core businesses, successful as they are now, will naturally stop growing. Online advertising will peak, or advertizing will shift to another venue (handhelds? Internet TV?) that Google fail to take advantage of. No business lasts forever. Without growth the stock P/E will collapse and the stock drop with it, employees will begin to leave, the forward momentum will be lost. Some new hot tech darling will emerge, not necessarily in Google's core business areas at all.
Cringely is starting to lose it, I think. Too much time out on the edge can make you start to see things and hear voices.
Seriously, there's a lot of pressure on writers like Cringely to come up with something "counter-intuitive", "insightful", and "outside the box" and "forward thinking" to the point where, faced with a deadline or empty blog post, they throw caution to the wind and blurt out some shit that sounds smart, but if you scratch the surface is nonsense.
TFA is one of those.
You are welcome on my lawn.