6 ms·

As discussed in Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo![0], Mayer's feud with Singhal was responsible for her 'demotion' to Google's Maps/local team, and eve

As discussed in Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo![0], Mayer's feud with Singhal was responsible for her 'demotion' to Google's Maps/local team, and eventual departure for Yahoo!: > Singhal loathed how, when his team was ready to roll out a change, Mayer would insist it pass through her UI review—a process that could take weeks. … > [I]n 2010, Larry Page decided that Google was moving too slowly. He wanted the whole company to move as fast as its Android and Chrome divisions. > One impetus for this decision was a memo from a longtime Googler named Urs Hölzle. It reminded everyone that social networks, and Facebook in particular, had become a dominant force on the Internet. It said that Google was nearly blind to all the knowledge stored on Facebook. Hölzle pleaded with his colleagues to focus on social media, or else the company could be swept away in an oncoming wave. > Page took the memo to heart, and put Vic Gundotra in charge of developing a social network for Google. The project was code-named Emerald Sea, after a Japanese painting in which a boat is about to be wiped out by a huge wave. Gundotra’s team built a prototype in a hundred days. > The speed impressed Page. He realized that one thing Android, Chrome, and the Emerald Sea project had in common was that each had a single person in charge. He wondered if it was time to put one person in charge of search. > Gundotra, suddenly vested with influence thanks to the Emerald Sea project, made it known that he did not like working with Mayer. With all her reviews and processes, she slowed things down too much. > Page thought about the future of Google and its past. To him, the strength of the company was that it developed machines that could learn what humans wanted and then provide it to them. He believed that Singhal better understood how to make the technology that powered those machines. Page believed that made Singhal more capable of pushing Google products to their technological limits…He summoned Mayer into a one-on-one meeting and told her she was done working on Google search. 0: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LLIJ22W http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LLIJ22W

wavefunction 11y ago
>knowledge stored on Facebook A questionable assertion.
- awa 11y ago
  All of my local recommendations (handyman, local photographer, where to buy tomatoes) have now shifted to facebook groups. I no longer google handyman in blah, xyz. instead I go through my saved posts in FB. This is along with local city news and news from friends and family that is all on facebook. e.g. One of my colleague's (and friend) kid was in ER last weekend so on Monday during standup I was able to tell the rest of the folks that he was out due to family emergency without getting an email from him...
  - kumarm 11y ago
    [All of my local recommendations (handyman, local photographer, where to buy tomatoes) have now shifted to facebook groups. I no longer google handyman in blah, xyz. instead I go through my saved posts in FB.] In my local area NextDoor is replacing FB completely for any local recommendations, news, Alerts.
- mwfunk 11y ago
  Not questionable at all- it's a gold mine for knowledge of value to advertisers. Every post, like, etc. on Facebook is spontaneously coming from a user. You don't have to infer what people love or hate based on browser and search history, you just let them tell you (and all their friends) what they love or hate. They're literally telling you what you should advertise to them, it doesn't get better than that for businesses driven by ad revenue (not a negative judgement, just an observation). Of course Google would want that data, and of course Facebook would want to prevent them from getting it.
  - zaphar 11y ago
    The caveat being that on the level of the user it's more like (love, sort of like, guilted into saying you liked) vs (hate, feel kind of meh about, guilted into saying your hated). The aggregation of those likes is more useful but at the individual user level it's a terrible signal. Especially since the entire social structure of the network is geared toward getting you to click like whether you actually like it or now.
jacobolus 11y ago
I don’t know if it has anything to do with Mayer/lack of review per se, or if it’s more about the scattered focus of G+, Android, etc., or if companies of a certain size are just inevitably incapable of solid UI implementation, or what, but Google’s UI polish on its flagship browser apps has taken a nosedive in the past 5–6 years. They used to be lightweight, fast, and reliable. Now they are bloated monstrosities packed with weird glitches that devour browser resources.
- w1ntermute 11y ago
  I think Mayer's direct focus was more on UI than on performance, although a simple UI could certainly lead to better performance: > One time, an APM brought a product to [Mayer] for review and she told him, “This page is too busy. What you need to do is look at every font on the page, every font size. And every time you see a new color or a new font size, you add up a point. I want this page below five points.” > The comment about “five points” ended up in the meeting notes, and then it became a rule. No pages with more than five points. > Another rule was: Design a product for the “98 percent use” case. For Mayer, the best example of a product that followed this rule was the Xerox copy machine. It could do all kinds of fancy things: staple, collate, copy, and fax. But if you walked up to one and pressed the giant green button, the right thing just happened. Mayer believed on every good product there should be a big button like that for the 98 percent use case, where if the user clicks it or taps it, they get a delightful, fluid, simple experience. > During a product review, Mayer would count the number of keystrokes it took to get every job done. Too many, and it was back to work.
  - jmknoll 11y ago
    These are great product guidelines. Especially the 98% use case. Are these from the book linked in the parent comment? Or do you have a source with more ideas along these lines?
    - w1ntermute 11y ago
      Yes, it's from the same book.
magicalist 11y ago
I don't see how that quote indicates that her "feud with Singhal was responsible for her 'demotion'...and eventual departure". I'll admit that I generally dislike these books that construct a simple narrative out of anecdotes out of years of time, so I'm mostly responding because it's disappointing that this is the only top comment right now. And (assuming it's true), believe it or not he's not the first person to resent someone bringing their expertise to bear on their baby, regardless of merit.
- w1ntermute 11y ago
  To continue: > In October 2010, it was made official. Mayer was removed from the top of Google’s search organization and put in charge of Google Maps and other “local” products. > Technically, this was a lateral move, if not a promotion, because Mayer retained her vice-president title and she was, at the same time, given a seat on Google’s operating committee—then-CEO Eric Schmidt’s round table of top executives from the company. > In reality, it was a demotion. Mayer was no longer in charge of what Google’s most important product looked like or how it worked. At Google, there was search, which generates nearly all of the company’s revenues and profits, and then there was everything else. Running Google search, Mayer was managing the most important product at the world’s most important Internet company. Running Google Maps, she was not.
  - magicalist 11y ago
    At best are you trying to argue for a "feud" with Larry Page?
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - w1ntermute 11y ago
      > Page consulted with [SVP of Engineering Bill] Coughran. Coughran said he could no longer peacefully referee what was becoming an increasingly hostile relationship between Singhal and Mayer. Coughran said that a couple times a week, one or the other would be in his office, complaining and asking to lead the organization. > “We’re going to have to pick somebody here,” he told Page. The feud was with Singhal. Page only picked the winner. I'd recommend you just read the book (the quotes are from chapter 6).
nostrademons 11y ago
It's interesting to see printed descriptions of events that I lived through. (I worked on projects sponsored by both of them, and was also loaned out to help with the Emerald Sea launch.) Some are echoes of the truth, but there are also some fairly big inaccuracies. Emerald Sea didn't have anything close to a prototype that could ship in 100 days. At best, there were a few technology demos from individual engineers. Urs sent his memo in March 2010; Emerald Sea launched as Google+ in June 2011, with the +1 button (done by David Byttow, who later attained infamy as the founder of Secret) launching a couple months earlier. Vic had few if any dealings with Marissa. She was moved to Geo in Oct 2010; at the time, Emerald Sea was a few scattered tech demos. The push to integrate G+ into everything Google didn't really start until after G+ launched in June 2011. Larry was impressed by speed, but I think that his exemplars were much more Android and Chrome than Emerald Sea. Mayer and Singhal had a very confused reporting relationship - basically, the engineers reported up to Singhal and the PMs reported up to Mayer. I wasn't close enough to them to know how well they got along personally, only that they both had very strong opinions and a lot of experience to back them up. It did make for some very slow product decisions as PMs had to get both of them to sign off on a change.

wavefunction 11y ago

>knowledge stored on Facebook A questionable assertion.

awa 11y ago
All of my local recommendations (handyman, local photographer, where to buy tomatoes) have now shifted to facebook groups. I no longer google handyman in blah, xyz. instead I go through my saved posts in FB. This is along with local city news and news from friends and family that is all on facebook. e.g. One of my colleague's (and friend) kid was in ER last weekend so on Monday during standup I was able to tell the rest of the folks that he was out due to family emergency without getting an email from him...
- kumarm 11y ago
  [All of my local recommendations (handyman, local photographer, where to buy tomatoes) have now shifted to facebook groups. I no longer google handyman in blah, xyz. instead I go through my saved posts in FB.] In my local area NextDoor is replacing FB completely for any local recommendations, news, Alerts.
mwfunk 11y ago
Not questionable at all- it's a gold mine for knowledge of value to advertisers. Every post, like, etc. on Facebook is spontaneously coming from a user. You don't have to infer what people love or hate based on browser and search history, you just let them tell you (and all their friends) what they love or hate. They're literally telling you what you should advertise to them, it doesn't get better than that for businesses driven by ad revenue (not a negative judgement, just an observation). Of course Google would want that data, and of course Facebook would want to prevent them from getting it.
- zaphar 11y ago
  The caveat being that on the level of the user it's more like (love, sort of like, guilted into saying you liked) vs (hate, feel kind of meh about, guilted into saying your hated). The aggregation of those likes is more useful but at the individual user level it's a terrible signal. Especially since the entire social structure of the network is geared toward getting you to click like whether you actually like it or now.

jacobolus 11y ago

I don’t know if it has anything to do with Mayer/lack of review per se, or if it’s more about the scattered focus of G+, Android, etc., or if companies of a certain size are just inevitably incapable of solid UI implementation, or what, but Google’s UI polish on its flagship browser apps has taken a nosedive in the past 5–6 years. They used to be lightweight, fast, and reliable. Now they are bloated monstrosities packed with weird glitches that devour browser resources.

w1ntermute 11y ago
I think Mayer's direct focus was more on UI than on performance, although a simple UI could certainly lead to better performance: > One time, an APM brought a product to [Mayer] for review and she told him, “This page is too busy. What you need to do is look at every font on the page, every font size. And every time you see a new color or a new font size, you add up a point. I want this page below five points.” > The comment about “five points” ended up in the meeting notes, and then it became a rule. No pages with more than five points. > Another rule was: Design a product for the “98 percent use” case. For Mayer, the best example of a product that followed this rule was the Xerox copy machine. It could do all kinds of fancy things: staple, collate, copy, and fax. But if you walked up to one and pressed the giant green button, the right thing just happened. Mayer believed on every good product there should be a big button like that for the 98 percent use case, where if the user clicks it or taps it, they get a delightful, fluid, simple experience. > During a product review, Mayer would count the number of keystrokes it took to get every job done. Too many, and it was back to work.
- jmknoll 11y ago
  These are great product guidelines. Especially the 98% use case. Are these from the book linked in the parent comment? Or do you have a source with more ideas along these lines?
  - w1ntermute 11y ago
    Yes, it's from the same book.

magicalist 11y ago

I don't see how that quote indicates that her "feud with Singhal was responsible for her 'demotion'...and eventual departure". I'll admit that I generally dislike these books that construct a simple narrative out of anecdotes out of years of time, so I'm mostly responding because it's disappointing that this is the only top comment right now. And (assuming it's true), believe it or not he's not the first person to resent someone bringing their expertise to bear on their baby, regardless of merit.

w1ntermute 11y ago
To continue: > In October 2010, it was made official. Mayer was removed from the top of Google’s search organization and put in charge of Google Maps and other “local” products. > Technically, this was a lateral move, if not a promotion, because Mayer retained her vice-president title and she was, at the same time, given a seat on Google’s operating committee—then-CEO Eric Schmidt’s round table of top executives from the company. > In reality, it was a demotion. Mayer was no longer in charge of what Google’s most important product looked like or how it worked. At Google, there was search, which generates nearly all of the company’s revenues and profits, and then there was everything else. Running Google search, Mayer was managing the most important product at the world’s most important Internet company. Running Google Maps, she was not.
- magicalist 11y ago
  At best are you trying to argue for a "feud" with Larry Page?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - w1ntermute 11y ago
    > Page consulted with [SVP of Engineering Bill] Coughran. Coughran said he could no longer peacefully referee what was becoming an increasingly hostile relationship between Singhal and Mayer. Coughran said that a couple times a week, one or the other would be in his office, complaining and asking to lead the organization. > “We’re going to have to pick somebody here,” he told Page. The feud was with Singhal. Page only picked the winner. I'd recommend you just read the book (the quotes are from chapter 6).

nostrademons 11y ago

It's interesting to see printed descriptions of events that I lived through. (I worked on projects sponsored by both of them, and was also loaned out to help with the Emerald Sea launch.) Some are echoes of the truth, but there are also some fairly big inaccuracies. Emerald Sea didn't have anything close to a prototype that could ship in 100 days. At best, there were a few technology demos from individual engineers. Urs sent his memo in March 2010; Emerald Sea launched as Google+ in June 2011, with the +1 button (done by David Byttow, who later attained infamy as the founder of Secret) launching a couple months earlier. Vic had few if any dealings with Marissa. She was moved to Geo in Oct 2010; at the time, Emerald Sea was a few scattered tech demos. The push to integrate G+ into everything Google didn't really start until after G+ launched in June 2011. Larry was impressed by speed, but I think that his exemplars were much more Android and Chrome than Emerald Sea. Mayer and Singhal had a very confused reporting relationship - basically, the engineers reported up to Singhal and the PMs reported up to Mayer. I wasn't close enough to them to know how well they got along personally, only that they both had very strong opinions and a lot of experience to back them up. It did make for some very slow product decisions as PMs had to get both of them to sign off on a change.