4 ms·

Zuck should have read Sun Tzu instead of Cato - "If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by." I'm not sure how much of the G

Zuck should have read Sun Tzu instead of Cato - "If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by." I'm not sure how much of the G+ failure can really be attributed to any particular activity of FB as a company.

joe_the_user 10y ago
Yeah, it seems like launching G+ as a Google integration product to force people into G+ was dumb step one (so G+ wound-up immediately disliked by more people than it was liked, including me as involuntary recruit). It seems like Google's in-practice more draconian real names policy was dumb step two. The "social must be everything" Mantra that Google was chanting then was annoying and ridiculous. But part of the situation was the company didn't want to just create a useful service for people but rather wanted to impose a situation where people's identities could be monetized by Google. Facebook has had trouble monetizing their product and I suspect they're safe because every company with the resources to produce a UI and service as useful as Facebook is going to want have such a service impose more conditions, be oriented towards quicker monetization, etc. Even MySpace could have persisted if they'd focused on providing things Facebook didn't - but no one wanted to extend credit to them to do and creating this stuff apparently costs a lot of money for a significant amount of time.
tacos 10y ago
"Surfers patting each other on the back for pushing the waves closer to shore."
amaks 10y ago
I agree, it looks like the demise of Google+ is direct effect of mismanagement by Vic and integrating everything (YouTube, Gmail etc.), not any kind of Zuck's "genius".
antongm 10y ago
I know that proverb via a popular Spanish version, and I do quote it in the book, though not in reference to Google Plus.
- fishnchips 10y ago
  If you knew the other side of the story - how folks at Google felt about G+ - you'd know what I mean. Historically there's been a ton of internal pushback against many C-level decisions. Killing Reader was one instance where we had petitions, public outrages and a few ragequits. But nothing ever came close to how demoralizing G+ was. Lots of folks genuinely believed in G's "mission" and joined the company to make the world a better place. No, seriously, a ton of people believed it. Seeing how cynical G's play against FB was and how willingly G trampled its core values in the process lots of people simply lost faith in the company. Most of them stayed but the magic was gone. I think at some stage it became clear that if you push this pedal to the metal the company will simply implode.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    That corresponds strongly with my (outsiders) view, and conversations I've had with a few Googlers. Though I'm also aware that decisions at _any_ organisation can be unpopular, and in a large company, you'll have responses. But G+ seemed to push the strain quite high.

joe_the_user 10y ago

Yeah, it seems like launching G+ as a Google integration product to force people into G+ was dumb step one (so G+ wound-up immediately disliked by more people than it was liked, including me as involuntary recruit). It seems like Google's in-practice more draconian real names policy was dumb step two. The "social must be everything" Mantra that Google was chanting then was annoying and ridiculous. But part of the situation was the company didn't want to just create a useful service for people but rather wanted to impose a situation where people's identities could be monetized by Google. Facebook has had trouble monetizing their product and I suspect they're safe because every company with the resources to produce a UI and service as useful as Facebook is going to want have such a service impose more conditions, be oriented towards quicker monetization, etc. Even MySpace could have persisted if they'd focused on providing things Facebook didn't - but no one wanted to extend credit to them to do and creating this stuff apparently costs a lot of money for a significant amount of time.

tacos 10y ago

"Surfers patting each other on the back for pushing the waves closer to shore."

amaks 10y ago

I agree, it looks like the demise of Google+ is direct effect of mismanagement by Vic and integrating everything (YouTube, Gmail etc.), not any kind of Zuck's "genius".

antongm 10y ago

I know that proverb via a popular Spanish version, and I do quote it in the book, though not in reference to Google Plus.

fishnchips 10y ago
If you knew the other side of the story - how folks at Google felt about G+ - you'd know what I mean. Historically there's been a ton of internal pushback against many C-level decisions. Killing Reader was one instance where we had petitions, public outrages and a few ragequits. But nothing ever came close to how demoralizing G+ was. Lots of folks genuinely believed in G's "mission" and joined the company to make the world a better place. No, seriously, a ton of people believed it. Seeing how cynical G's play against FB was and how willingly G trampled its core values in the process lots of people simply lost faith in the company. Most of them stayed but the magic was gone. I think at some stage it became clear that if you push this pedal to the metal the company will simply implode.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  That corresponds strongly with my (outsiders) view, and conversations I've had with a few Googlers. Though I'm also aware that decisions at _any_ organisation can be unpopular, and in a large company, you'll have responses. But G+ seemed to push the strain quite high.