4 ms·

I always wondered if Google just fired all their engineers except a few top guys, and focused on their core money making products like search / ads / etc. and t

by skizm 10y ago

I always wondered if Google just fired all their engineers except a few top guys, and focused on their core money making products like search / ads / etc. and tried to stay as lean as possible (lean being a relative term), how much profit they could make.

rabidrat 10y ago
There's an old analogy that running a business is like taking a road trip, with money as the gasoline: you need to get gas along the way, but that's not the point of the trip. So effectively you're wondering how much fuel you'd have left over if you only had a few bicycles towing a fuel truck. What's the point?
- skizm 10y ago
  There is no point. It is a thought experiment. I'm wondering how much value the different parts of their company actually add to the bottom line. I'm thinking that despite "losing money" on a lot of their stuff, it does keep them in the news and their brand relevant. Like if Google had only done search and ads would Android have taken off like it did? Or was it because everyone knows Google does cool stuff and hopefully their cool stuff would make its way to Android?
tajen 10y ago
I concur. But then I tried to classify Google projects in 3 categories and find for "obviously useless things that only exist so engineers can have fun", and I didn't find so many obvious things: - Obviously productive ones: Gmail, Google Analytics, Android, Android TV, Maps, Youtube, OpenSocial, Chrome, because they all participate to "universally trackable users", - Skeptical projects: Fiber, Flights, Google Scholar, TensorFlow, Chrome OS, GDrive, GApps for Business, - Pet projects that may be fun but don't seem to serve as leverage: GCE (yes, their cloud solution), Google+, Go, Google Earth, Google Play/Music, Google Wallet, Google Glass, GGroups, GFinance, GTranslate, Google Fonts, Google Classroom, Inbox, Wave, Hangouts, Google News, Google Currents, Google Keep, Google Now, Wave... Therefore... If they wanted to stay as lean as possible, would they have come up with the right list straight away? What makes products "obviously" part of the first list? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products
- dx034 10y ago
  Even the skeptical ones are probably productive: - Flights will likely make money, it operates on a comission basis. It's just not big compared to other projects - TensorFlow is part of the machine learning programme that is used heavily to make more money in other areas. Sharing knowledge helps to get talent in that area - Chrome OS is like Android for laptops. It ensures that you use Chrome and Google. The adaption rate is not huge, but I could imagine that it still pays off
- Eridrus 10y ago
  > - Skeptical projects: TensorFlow I have to disagree. TF is Google's internal ML system, so the waste here is minimal, on top of that the luck they had in adoption means that lots of people they hire are already quite familiar with their internal systems and their internal system is now very common for deep learning research, and plenty of people are writing systems compatible with their internal tech.
baccheion 10y ago
Only the top 5% at Google are "that good" (and that number may be lower now). Everyone else is average-to-mediocre. As search and ads will essentially be in maintenance mode in your hypothetical world, what they should do is pull out the top 5% and set them to work on something "big" (if they'd prefer to be told what to do or have nothing worthwhile in mind). The next 5% can then be assigned to search or ads, mainly to maintain (which still requires incremental times-related improvement). That's 3,000 people working on bigger things, and another 3,000 supporting what is. If you want to do something even more aggressive (which doesn't like such a bad idea if the top 5% are actually working on more important things, rather than it just being claimed/heralded as the plan), then get rid of all products other than search + ads (therefore Android and Chrome), YouTube, and GMail (which would first have to freed from political gridlock and modernized). I'll mention the obvious (the plan relies on properly identifying the top 10%), as it seems the idiots there fall for politicking, posturing, BS'ing, or whatever else leaves them drawn toward "meh"-quality people and toward screwing over everyone else. They also like trusting their intuition, while twisting, mangling, and misinterpreting data in whatever way will push/support their biased self-serving point of view.

by skizm 10y ago

rabidrat 10y ago

There's an old analogy that running a business is like taking a road trip, with money as the gasoline: you need to get gas along the way, but that's not the point of the trip. So effectively you're wondering how much fuel you'd have left over if you only had a few bicycles towing a fuel truck. What's the point?

skizm 10y ago
There is no point. It is a thought experiment. I'm wondering how much value the different parts of their company actually add to the bottom line. I'm thinking that despite "losing money" on a lot of their stuff, it does keep them in the news and their brand relevant. Like if Google had only done search and ads would Android have taken off like it did? Or was it because everyone knows Google does cool stuff and hopefully their cool stuff would make its way to Android?

tajen 10y ago

I concur. But then I tried to classify Google projects in 3 categories and find for "obviously useless things that only exist so engineers can have fun", and I didn't find so many obvious things: - Obviously productive ones: Gmail, Google Analytics, Android, Android TV, Maps, Youtube, OpenSocial, Chrome, because they all participate to "universally trackable users", - Skeptical projects: Fiber, Flights, Google Scholar, TensorFlow, Chrome OS, GDrive, GApps for Business, - Pet projects that may be fun but don't seem to serve as leverage: GCE (yes, their cloud solution), Google+, Go, Google Earth, Google Play/Music, Google Wallet, Google Glass, GGroups, GFinance, GTranslate, Google Fonts, Google Classroom, Inbox, Wave, Hangouts, Google News, Google Currents, Google Keep, Google Now, Wave... Therefore... If they wanted to stay as lean as possible, would they have come up with the right list straight away? What makes products "obviously" part of the first list? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products

dx034 10y ago
Even the skeptical ones are probably productive: - Flights will likely make money, it operates on a comission basis. It's just not big compared to other projects - TensorFlow is part of the machine learning programme that is used heavily to make more money in other areas. Sharing knowledge helps to get talent in that area - Chrome OS is like Android for laptops. It ensures that you use Chrome and Google. The adaption rate is not huge, but I could imagine that it still pays off
Eridrus 10y ago
> - Skeptical projects: TensorFlow I have to disagree. TF is Google's internal ML system, so the waste here is minimal, on top of that the luck they had in adoption means that lots of people they hire are already quite familiar with their internal systems and their internal system is now very common for deep learning research, and plenty of people are writing systems compatible with their internal tech.

baccheion 10y ago

Only the top 5% at Google are "that good" (and that number may be lower now). Everyone else is average-to-mediocre. As search and ads will essentially be in maintenance mode in your hypothetical world, what they should do is pull out the top 5% and set them to work on something "big" (if they'd prefer to be told what to do or have nothing worthwhile in mind). The next 5% can then be assigned to search or ads, mainly to maintain (which still requires incremental times-related improvement). That's 3,000 people working on bigger things, and another 3,000 supporting what is. If you want to do something even more aggressive (which doesn't like such a bad idea if the top 5% are actually working on more important things, rather than it just being claimed/heralded as the plan), then get rid of all products other than search + ads (therefore Android and Chrome), YouTube, and GMail (which would first have to freed from political gridlock and modernized). I'll mention the obvious (the plan relies on properly identifying the top 10%), as it seems the idiots there fall for politicking, posturing, BS'ing, or whatever else leaves them drawn toward "meh"-quality people and toward screwing over everyone else. They also like trusting their intuition, while twisting, mangling, and misinterpreting data in whatever way will push/support their biased self-serving point of view.