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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.'"
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.
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.
"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.
But first they need to fire 150,000 workers. It's not going to be pretty.
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.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Developmen
The most pertinent part of the article I've linked is:
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.
http://nyamenation.org/
(if u are old enough to remember that).
Hi Grandpa - If you're going to abbreviate 'you' to 'u', please also abbreviate 'are' to 'r'
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.
Google is not a search engine company. It's an advertising company. Anything which generates content is purchased by google. They have made internet more junk and ofcourse useful. It is not safe to invest in google shares because they are in such a business where profit can be modified easily in different ways. I still remember that youtube deal. I saw a sudden surge in their stock prices. They declared a nice quarter report beating all expectations. In the end, they paid less number of shares to youtube guys. This is nothing but evil.
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Why do people continue to post Cringely's stuff, and how does it continue to get on Slashdot? He himself all but admitted that he is a troll!
Oh, wait... I guess I just answered my own question.
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.
Anyway, I think he forgets two main points. one overlooked concern is size. Size is needed to create momentum: you can only sell a lot of ads of you have a lot of viewers, you can only buy the computing capacity and bandwith if you have a lot of revenue. If you as a google-like company do not manage to get the critical momentum. It is the same size that makes google inherently an 'evil' company. They have are so involved in your private life that they get a lot of potential power over you. Google tries to handle this power in one way or another, maybe you do not agree with many of their decisions, but what are their options, and is there one single correct way to handle this?
Then there is second factor, quality: Remember, in the case of google, you have the choice to use it or not. There are at least a few alternatives for every application that they offer. But you CHOOSE to use google, because of the quality of the products. Apparently the designers behind google have a feeling for quality products that is outstanding. This is something to respect, it is not easy to make something technological easy. Just think about it, when was the last time you clicked the 'advanced' search button in google. They did an amazing job of opening the web in a way anyone can use. Imagine that they would work with regexes? Or via clickable boxes for every special option? No, the genius is in taking a complex problem, and presenting it in the most simple form understandable by humans. I for one, can not repeat this, can you? Can cringely? This is also where google can fail. Just this week I noticed that my terrible old pc has more and more problems with google every time. Google mail is getting pretty bloated with features in that it is very slow to load in my browser. As I said, to find the right balance between features and simpleness is an art, if they start really losing that, I will start useing something else pretty quickly.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
The next killer app does not have to come out of the current killer. But it is a very well documented and repeating pattern that many of these "next killer apps" are developed within the then dominant organisation - because that's where the money is - but ignored or not understood by management. The inventors then quit and build the new killer organisation, leaving their previous employer wonder what happened. The most important observation, however, is that the very same people that went through all this later fall in the exact same trap themselves.
Remember Ken Olsen. IBM didn't believe in his ideas for smaller better and more ubiquitous computers, so he built DEC. But 20 years later he didn't believe in the PC ("there is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home") and DEC ended up being bought by Compaq.
There are plenty more examples of this pattern in the computer industry.Linux user since early January 1992.
Google may morph slowly into a privacy eating gorilla and then after a single public-relations fiasco (it still has a lot of enemies), it may turn more mellow like IBM or Microsoft.
But die ??? Nope.
Cringley says rejected ideas consortium inc., would kill google.
I agree some ideas may have been good, but rejected. But overwhelmingly, good ideas do get done, like Microsoft Office.
MS Office is THE fastest office package ever, because it so damn easy to use (after 2000, no real changes i agree).
Excel was being used in real battle support during the Iraq war (initial days).
iPod vs. other MP3?? I aint think so. iPod has a 85% market share. The rest ALL brands are combined as a generic products MP3.
So i can buy a Rio, HP, Zune, and all are MP3....
What matters is Brand name...
Google is fast becoming a verb, and once u become so generic, it is hard to remove your name from people's memory. U have a cash cow, if u know where to milk.
Lets hope google keeps its focus on finding relevant information, and leave this office, etc., business to the experts.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
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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.
Google can quickly change to accomodate any revolutionary new idea in the computer industry. Their business model is not tied to how computers work. If somebody found a new way to make computers and systems that made the old way obsolete, Google would just switch to the new way. By contrast, companies like Microsoft, Intel, AMD, Sun, Apple and others are married to the status quo. And if you think that the computer industry is not ripe for a revolution, think again. The algorithmic model is as old as Babbage and Lady Ada, that's 150 years old! We have a big problem called unreliability that has put an upper limit on the complexity of our systems and kept software development costs at a high level. The old way of doing things does not work well anymore. The market is screaming for a solution. And what the market wants, the market will get. I doubt that the coming revolution will come from the West, though. They have too much to lose. They can no longer change their ways because the old gurus have become demi-gods, and nobody dares question the gods. I see it coming from places like China or India. You've been warned. You heard it here first. ahahaha...
IBM is really a fraction of their size that they were back in the days of uncle lou (which is what we called him when he first started). Their decline is not a decline, but a losing of the market share that they had. Basically, IBM was the 8000 lb gorilla back in the 70's and 80's.
Likeiwse, MS is starting downwards as well. Apple and Linux are finally eating into their desktop. To really see it, step out of America.
OO and google office is starting to take some of their office monopoly. As time progresses, more govs will go the path of OO as well schools who pick up olpc.
And MSIE is down a LONG ways down from the late 90's, early 00's. Back then they owned 98% of the market. Now, they are at around 80% and still continuing downwards.
MS was never the main attack on IBM, just the last one prior to their downfall. Likewise, we are seeing MS's downfall. They will not end, but they will not own the market with free reign to crush whoever looks wrong at BG or Balmer.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Free markets are not zero sum games. If we enter a lottery, somebody walks away with the pot and everybody else loses. With trade in a free market, everyone who participates comes away a winner. So if Google employees come up with some new company, that doesn't mean that Google is harmed in any way.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Do you have any idea of how much writing RMS has actually done? E.g., see his book of essays for an example of his mastery of English and essay writing. RMS will be frequently misunderstood like this as long as he is delivering an unpopular message. Moreover, the message is generally counter to the establishment. Spolsky and Graham may challenge convention but certainly not on the level that RMS _consistently_ does. The comparison in other posts that holds up Linus over RMS does not take into account that Linus simply does not indulge in controversial matters to the degree that RMS does.
RMS also can be insensitive, impatient, and unaccomodating to various norms (e.g., looks like a hippie).
Thus, RMS alienates and confuses _in spite_ of his excellent communication skills.
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.
While I don't personally believe that Google is getting dethroned anytime soon, keep in mind that it has happened before. Back in the 1970's, all the Really Smart People (tm) in Silicon Valley worked for the mighty giant known as Fairchild Semiconductor. A few of them jumped ship to go work on their own, on this crazy idea they had to put an entire central processing unit on a single chip.
They put together a little startup called Intel.
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Yeah, comparing Apple's 'Rise to Dominance' in the laptop market to Google's rise in the search market is like comparing Datsun's rise in the US market to Toyota's.
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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
It's "Cringeley", so don't take it too seriously, but...
Google has a fundamental problem. It became successful as a search company that ran a few ads to defray expenses. Now it's an ad agency that offers services to build ad traffic. This limits them.
How? You can do a better job at search if you don't have to suck up to the pay per click advertisers. Just throwing out most sites with pay per click ads is a good start. But Google can't do that - that's where the revenue to support their bloated operation (been to Shoreline lately?) comes from.
Google seemed to undergo a big change starting about two years ago. That's when they first started cozying up to the "search engine optimization" people. Google used to view "search engine optimization" as evil. Now they are the major sponsor of SEO conferences. And, of course, they bought DoubleClick, an advertising company so obnoxious that most Firefox users blocked their ads long ago.
Consider Craigslist, which is rapidly destroying newspaper classified advertising. Craigslist has an edge - they're cheap. They only have fifty or so employees, and the owner has no ambitions to become a Fortune 1000 company. This drives their competitors nuts, because they aren't annoying their customer base with ads and nobody can afford to compete with them. They're devaluing ad-supported media.
Doesn't this paint a different view on why Google is the best company to work for? Maybe the idea behind the free gyms, spas, 3 gourmet meals a day (sushi), etc. was to keep their employees with them instead of trying to break free.
You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
Apple's notebooks are currently in 5th place, behind HP, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, and Gateway.
Apple's notebooks constantly lag behind in feature set and performance. Consider:
Whether or not you think these features are useful, many, many people do. I use the media reader on my notebook all the time, and I don't have to bring around a USB or ExpressCard reader. I dock my other (business) laptop daily at work, hooking me up to power, USB (keyboard/mouse), DVI, audio (headphones), and the network in one step.
Not to mention the features that Apple now has, but was just late with. Sudden motion sensor (ThinkPad had it first). Camera (Sony notebooks, HP notebooks, my cheap 2-year-old generic Compal notebook). Multi-finger scroll (Alps drivers circa 1998). Lighted keyboard (ThinkLight). Remote control (Dell/HP notebooks circa 2003).
The list goes on. I'm not saying that Apple doesn't innovate. MagSafe is a very cool idea (although there doesn't seem to be sufficient stress relief on the cable). But there is plenty of innovation in the notebook space, coming from many different companies in many different parts of the world.
You know what? The ThinkPad T61 looks like crap compared to the 15" MacBook Pro. But it's faster (800MHz FSB, Turbo cache, NVIDIA Quadro graphics), beefier (magnesium protection for the screen, shock mounted HDD cage), has better battery life (5 hours with the 7-cell battery), lighter (about half a pound lighter with the 7-cell), cooler and quieter, smaller, easier to secure (smartcard reader / fingerprint scanner, full drive encryption), and much, much cheaper (2.2GHz/1GB/DVD-RW/120GB/WSXGA+/NVIDIA/11n/Blueto
Winning indeed.