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Google are only interested in selling things by the billion or billion, therefore things like the robots have to go. This is one of those products that does not

Google are only interested in selling things by the billion or billion, therefore things like the robots have to go. This is one of those products that does not sell to millions and therefore it has to be got rid of. Not sure when the 'must sell billions' idea came along, it was before the Pixel phone but is a relatively new idea for Google.

derefr 10y ago
It's sort of the startup philosophy in reverse. "Only do things that have economies of scale." As if Google is just one person controlling a billion robots, and can do anything a billion robots can do, but can't do anything that requires more than the oversight of a single human for the entire project. (In est, Google is the player-character in Factorio.)
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  So basically, the Google-character has too low APM. Maybe time to hire StarCraft progamers for executive positions?
  - majewsky 10y ago
    The similarity between the words "progamers" and "programmers" was really irritating to me in that line. :)
- Animats 10y ago
  This is an argument for automating top management. There are companies that choke on limited CEO bandwidth, and Google seems to be one of them. Apple under Jobs kept the product line so small that one person could manage it, which is one way to do it. Google, though, keeps trying to broaden their revenue stream beyond ads, without much success. This is a classic management problem. The first person to really get a handle on it was Alfred P. Sloane, who headed GM and wrote "The Concept of the Corporation". He figured out how to organize a very large company effectively, and GM's management structure worked well for half a century. They beat out everybody else until Japanese competition appeared. (GM probably stayed with Sloan's structure too long, but nobody else really knew what to do.) There's the argument that, rather than one company having a broad range of products, there should be many companies, each with a narrow product range. It's cheaper to run a fund than manage a conglomerate. The conglomerate concept was that "synergy" between the business units would reduce cost. In practice, this rarely works. There are some successful companies with very broad product lines. Mitsubishi and Samsung are two of the biggest. General Electric was the classic US example, but they've backed off from most of their consumer products other than major appliances.

derefr 10y ago

It's sort of the startup philosophy in reverse. "Only do things that have economies of scale." As if Google is just one person controlling a billion robots, and can do anything a billion robots can do, but can't do anything that requires more than the oversight of a single human for the entire project. (In est, Google is the player-character in Factorio.)

TeMPOraL 10y ago
So basically, the Google-character has too low APM. Maybe time to hire StarCraft progamers for executive positions?
- majewsky 10y ago
  The similarity between the words "progamers" and "programmers" was really irritating to me in that line. :)
Animats 10y ago
This is an argument for automating top management. There are companies that choke on limited CEO bandwidth, and Google seems to be one of them. Apple under Jobs kept the product line so small that one person could manage it, which is one way to do it. Google, though, keeps trying to broaden their revenue stream beyond ads, without much success. This is a classic management problem. The first person to really get a handle on it was Alfred P. Sloane, who headed GM and wrote "The Concept of the Corporation". He figured out how to organize a very large company effectively, and GM's management structure worked well for half a century. They beat out everybody else until Japanese competition appeared. (GM probably stayed with Sloan's structure too long, but nobody else really knew what to do.) There's the argument that, rather than one company having a broad range of products, there should be many companies, each with a narrow product range. It's cheaper to run a fund than manage a conglomerate. The conglomerate concept was that "synergy" between the business units would reduce cost. In practice, this rarely works. There are some successful companies with very broad product lines. Mitsubishi and Samsung are two of the biggest. General Electric was the classic US example, but they've backed off from most of their consumer products other than major appliances.