16 ms·

Why I left Google to join Grab

311 points by kungfudoi 9y ago

purplezooey 9y ago
The only way to stop labor practices that involve abusing workers, not paying a living wage or for healthcare, is to say (as a customer and voter) that you will not tolerate this type of business existing. In other words, if company X can only deliver your low price pizza and Diet Coke via abuse of its workers, then that business should not exist. It's a hard leap to make for many people, but a necessary one.
- barry-cotter 9y ago
  This is a coordination problem, i.e. of the same general class as how to maintain a cartel or avoid a race to the bottom to the cost of producers and benefit of consumers in an oligopolistic market. To summarise; it can’t be done unless the cartel can make and enforce legal contracts divining the market or with more than three market participants. Same reason the bidders for Amazon HQ2 can’t collude; cooperation is really, really hard. You need an enforcement mechanism.
- distances 9y ago
  The burden to track company behaviour shouldn't be on customers. The normal way to counter this is via unions.
  - kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
    It sounds like unions are the new Rust on Hacker News.
    - smacktoward 9y ago
      in both cases, it's unsurprising that when the status quo so obviously sucks as badly as it does that people go looking for alternatives.
    - 18pfsmt 9y ago
      I've got many friends in unions (e.g. pipefitters/welders) and based on the stories they tell me, unions need a 21st century reboot. They need a simple platform to organize/communicate digitally. Do you know of anything that exists like that?
      - Apocryphon 9y ago
        If only there was an industry that was good at building new communications platforms + revamping 20th century institutions.
      - distances 9y ago
        I feel there's a clear difference how people see unions in the US vs. in Europe. I don't have much insight in to the differences, but it would be nice to hear why that is so. I'm a proponent of strong unions with generally binding collective agreements (= collective agreements defining legally binding minimum terms for the whole industry), but I suppose the model won't work everywhere for one reason or another.
- mantas 9y ago
  Fun story... Major supermarkets in my country announced they're phasing out caged chicken eggs. Vast majority of feedback I saw so far is people pissed off cheapest eggs will be gone. Looks like there's agreement this is conspiracy to rip off customers. So yeah.. I doubt people could gang up on unsustainable businesses as long as they personally pay less.
  - limaoscarjuliet 9y ago
    "We are pledging we are in the process of thinking about moving towards streamlining possible future transition to making 10% of <turn really lagre fonts on> EGGS CAGE FREE." Ok, not a direct quote from mayo bottle but you get the gist of it. Now the funny part, my better half has a hotel and restaurant. She has trouble working with good ingredients because people demand crap ones they are used to.
    - mantas 9y ago
      > Now the funny part, my better half has a hotel and restaurant. She has trouble working with good ingredients because people demand crap ones they are used to. That was my exact experience first time I bought high quality peanut butter. The oil had separated and stayed at the top. I thought something went wrong and I was ripped off. Took me some googling to realise that's what happens if the maker don't take away natural nuts oil and don't replace it with palm oil. Took me some time to adjust to natural no-unnecessary-additives jams too. Now cheap knockoffs taste like shit though. The overexposed taste is just too lame and lacks depth.
      - magic_beans 9y ago
        I always thought it was ridiculous that natural peanut butter has the disclaimer "oil will separate." I guess now I know why :) But nothing, NOTHING comes close to freshly blended peanut butter warm from those little blending machines at natural grocery stores or Whole foods.
- mindcrime 9y ago
  And for the workers for whom that "abuse" is better than the other options? If I have a choice between dying in the street of starvation, or working in a hot kitchen for $2.00 /hour, no healthcare, no breaks, etc., would you deny me that chance to make $2.00 / hour? If so, all I can say is "who the hell do you think you are?"
  - davidcbc 9y ago
    As a society we shouldn't make people choose between the two. That's why we have things like a social safety net and minimum wage.
okr 9y ago
Currently staying in indonesia for vacation, i can verify, a lot of green go-jek jackets, not so many grab ones. Personally i use go-jek. Got an sms just like whatsapp, and i was setup. Grab wants me to create an account, meh, so i stopped there. I like the live tracking, so i can see, where the driver is. Helped me a lot to get out and find the driver, as the navigation route is most likely wrong in all these small streets. Hard to give notes, they ignore them anyways. The Go-Jek apps, for each purpose one, meh. The update mess on each day, whenever i get wifi, i hate it. And i see signs everywhere: only drop-off, no go-jek, no grab, no uber. They are pretty vocal about it. So yeah, its a war. Surely it breaks up local schemes of corruption. One can see it, when streets are closed down by types in army clothes, and a caravan of cars enter the streets, with dudes in open jeeps, moustache and laughing. There goes the money. I do not know. There is a global economy and local businesses. I wish it was not a few companies driving the disrupting changes, that will destroy most likely local businesses, that have developed over decades. Sure, people use it and that is good. Good ideas replace ideas not so good anymore in these times. Ah, i dont know. I want tools, that allow people to connect directly in an open market. Without a big company controlling the flow and taking a percentage here and there. But maybe thats the prize to pay for now. Everyone can take a camera now and do tv, its not monopolized anymore by a few. End of rant. I wish that dude good luck. I also have left a well oiled machine to start something else. I do not share his excitement, though. The food delivery business will never be mine except for emergency. That beats crusty, non plastic wrapped 'fresh' together with a few friends. But thats just me. :)
- plinkplonk 9y ago
  From what I understand Go-Jek is kicking Grab's ass in Indonesia. Go-Jek is presently only in Indonesia, and Grab is probably larger in SEA as a whole , but nothing prevents GoJek from expanding to other countries, so yes major war going on. May the best company win! I think Steve just wrote a great recruiting piece for Grab and Gojek ;-). Both are incredible companies, so all for the good. $Diety knows we need some great companies outside SF. Due Disclosure: (I have no real interest in the ride sharing space but) Some of my friends are driving the tech at GoJek, and they are incredibly sharp people, with great vision and the tech chops to match. If Yegge wanted to be in a war with formidable opponents, he's got it in spades!
ocdtrekkie 9y ago
I actually, because of the app I was reading this on, failed to realize this was a Yegge post until the end. No wonder it was such a good read. Welcome back to the real world, man, hoping we see more blogs from you in the future!
- DonHopkins 9y ago
  My first thought upon reading the title was "who cares why somebody left Google, unless it's somebody like Steve Yegge."
Animats 9y ago
The view from Shenzhen: Naomi Wu / @RealSexyCyborg / 10 Dec 2017 / Naomi Wu Retweeted Seruko If food delivery cost $0.40USD with no "tip" lots of Western countries might be at a similar place. Cheap migrant labor is the backbone of our e-commerce boom. The way they treat those boys is unforgivable.[1] The gig economy - more cost-effective than slavery. [1] https://twitter.com/realsexycyborg?lang=en https://twitter.com/realsexycyborg?lang=en
- belorn 9y ago
  Here in Sweden the cost in the cities is usually around $3-$10 with most around $4. The government is also considering to impose some regulars since the drivers only get a portion of the profits and the average earnings turns out to be smaller than minimum wage. Not sure about the other Western countries.
- masklinn 9y ago
  Actual permalink to the tweet: https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/940058014886780928 https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/940058014886780928 The previous tweets in the thread seem more relevant here: https://twitter.com/BeijingPalmer/status/940010649010233344 https://twitter.com/BeijingPalmer/status/940010649010233344 > I'm generally skeptical of anyone who makes a week-long trip to China and comes back awed by 'how advanced they are in X.' In my experience Chinese academics and firms lie their ass off to visitors. https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/940013406458757120 https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/940013406458757120 > Unfortunately...yes. It's economics- photos of "foreigners looking impressed at X" is pretty much a requirement for any sort of fund raising here. Western counterparts have incentive to play along so they can say "the Chinese are beating us at X" and get more funding back home.
  - magic_beans 9y ago
    Her profile pics are basically NSFW...
    - Tsagadai 9y ago
msmith10101 9y ago
Would like to see the gig economy move off of human labor. Do any of these companies like Grab or Go-Jek have much of an autonomy story or any real competitive differentiators? If not, this whole space is otherwise a race to the bottom and a question of who can raise the most money. The fact that money from Softbank and Alphabet is allocated to competitors illustrates that it is very unclear how these companies differ from one another.
Buge 9y ago
He mentions that Uber is losing so much money. But how much money is Grab losing? He says drivers make 3 to 5 times their prior wages. How can grab afford to pay that?
- himlion 9y ago
  They might say higher efficiency (less downtime), but I doubt the claim.
- ciguy 9y ago
  I was just talking to my UBer driver in Manila. He made $550 per month working as a registered nurse in one of the largest hospitals here. Driving for Uber he makes $1700 to $2100 per month. I'm assuming Grab pays similarly. I don't think he's really done the math to figure out maintenance and fuel costs, but presumably he's coming out ahead in any case. This is a major issue in developing countries where institutional wage increases have not kept pace with the "gig" economy. So a skilled and educated professional can make 3x to 5x the local wage by working as a virtual assistant or an Uber Driver. This pulls educated professionals out of the labor pool for things like medical and drags down the quality of care. Medical facilities in the Philippines can be really nice, but many doctors and nurses are recent grads and quite frankly completely clueless about anything but the most basic issues.
  - piva00 9y ago
    What I am afraid of is that these people payments are being subsidised by VC money, when that money runs out and they have to compete truly based on market self-regulated prices I fear the workers will be getting paid less and less to make up for the costs, it's good for a while but people are becoming dependent on something that is still very unstable.
    - beambot 9y ago
      > people are becoming dependent on something that is still very unstable. What industries would you consider stable today...?
    - 9y ago
thisisit 9y ago
It's a delightful read. I am no fan of Google but people do realize that once a company becomes big innovation has huge costs involved, more people means lesser room for growth and hence the politics, as well as some arrogance of being a large company. That said I kind of disagree with this: Restaurants and food trucks are both about to be obliterated by Peach and Uber Eats. The biggest cost to a restaurant was their location and hence, the rents. Sure using food delivery apps helps them a lot. It also lowers the barrier of running a restaurant. So people might be all in for these apps. But that is one side of the equation. The real question is - How is this a viable business for the food delivery apps? Is the market large enough to make real profits? As an example, most of the food delivery apps in India are not doing great: https://www.vccircle.com/swiggy-lost-rs-1-5-for-every-re-1-it-earned-last-year-revenue-jumped-six-fold/ https://www.vccircle.com/swiggy-lost-rs-1-5-for-every-re-1-i... Swiggy has been the "Uber" of food delivery apps here in India and they have revised their prices upwards quite frequently.
- shalmanese 9y ago
  Right now, what we have are the first generation of delivery restaurants which is basically "restaurants, only it's delivery". We won't start seeing the real revolution until we start seeing formats built natively around the assumptions of delivery. The second generation of "delivery, only it happens to be restaurants" format is going to look radically different from what we have today. For example, right now, restaurants are naturally incentivized to disperse around the city to take advantage of foot traffic. But this turns logistics into a N x M challenge which is expensive. Delivery restaurants are instead incentivized to cluster together because 1 x M logistics is so much more efficient. Once they cluster, further efficiencies can be unlocked. For example, right now, if there are 10 Asian restaurants in a block, each of them offers steamed rice and each of them owns a rice cooker. If you exist in a cluster and all your orders come from delivery, it no longer makes sense for you to be a "jack of all trades" restaurant, you can just have one restaurant make the 3 - 4 types of rice required for all Asian cuisines and it gets added on as a side for your order. Similar with like, mashed potatoes for Western restaurants, just have one restaurant focus on making the best damn mashed potatoes possible with all sorts of customized mixins and all the other restaurants don't have to deal with mashed potatoes. Prior to delivery restaurants, a "rice and mashed potatoes restaurant" would be totally non-viable. But with the disaggregating effects of delivery, it's now a possibility. Probably the closest analogy I can think of is the Singaporean Hawker centers. Each stall is only responsible for making 2 - 3 things and they make the best damn version of that thing possible. America, for whatever reason, has never managed to produce truly decent food courts so it's a totally different paradigm. On top of that, clustered delivery allows for the sharing of a lot of common infrastructure (HVAC, refrigeration, suppliers, dishwashing services, cleaning services, etc.) in a way that makes the entire enterprise more plug and play. Think AWS instead of dedicated servers. Rather than each kitchen having to hire a cleaning crew or worrying about what happens if the walk in is on the fritz, dedicated teams who specialize in each respective task can deploy it as a service scalably across the entire set of restaurants. Instead of incurring $X00,000 in startup costs, you can instead just lease at $X,000 a month and scale up your spend as you scale up your revenue. All of this requires delivery as a format to get over certain scale humps so that efficiencies can start to be unlocked. But once they do (as they're currently reaching in Asia), we're going to start seeing much more interesting, innovative business models that take delivery as a premise and innovate from there.
beegeezuz 9y ago
"why I left google to join grab" nobody gives a shit! why are people spamming the internet with these "why I did this" articles? who cares why YOU did something!? we all do that we feel is best for us, it's called life, I don't want to know your every move; this isn't twitter!
baba8 9y ago
Wow, that's an impressive recruitment material (apart from being an interesting read, of course)! That works so much better than a bland "We're hiring" page, having the picture painted that way makes it much easier to imagine yourself taking a side in that "war". Is that a new trend? Good luck to Steve!
pronik 9y ago
Just wanted to point out how happy I am that Steve is blogging again. I've missed that a LOT. Welcome back!
crispinb 9y ago
How depressing. Our living planet is collapsing at a dizzying and increasing pace, and not only do our 'best and brightest' (if that's what they are) work largely on trivia designed to accelerate the collapsing trend, they advertise their superficiality with this crude purported messianic zeal. Froth and bubble atop the dank turbid waters.
- iso-8859-1 9y ago
  Which project should he work on instead?
  - HugoDaniel 9y ago
    Linux on the desktop
    - linuxps2 9y ago
      This is the year, I just know it
      - NetOpWibby 9y ago
        Username checks out
  - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
    Not everyone is in a position to make the world a better place through their work, but it would be nice if they didn't actively make it worse.
    - atomashpolskiy 9y ago
      I'd say we desperately need new ways to self-organize to work on things that matter. Working for business, especially when governments are weak and regulation is pretty much non-existent, is a road to hell for the humanity
    - Kratisto 9y ago
reuven 9y ago
Steve Yegge's writing, whether on technology or business (or both), is always delightful to read. If he can start to write more now that he's no longer at Google, then I'm happy not just for him and his new job, but also for the rest of us, who can (hopefully) hear his voice much more often.
- mda 9y ago
  Delightful? More like excruciatingly long and boring.
  - magic_beans 9y ago
    The man needs an editor. Granted, he's enthusiastic and conversational, but he writes like a person who simply transcribed a long, spoken rant.
- shoover 9y ago
  My hope, as well. I don't care what he writes about. It's all fun and I will carve out the time it takes to read. The longer the better.
drej 9y ago
Not sure I follow the logic. "[Google] stuck in me-too mode and have been for years. They simply don’t have innovation in their DNA any more. And it’s because their eyes are fixed on their competitors, not their customers." [...] "I just witnessed history in the making. (...) I have not seen a land rush this massive since the early days of the Web, and it just might be even bigger. So what is Grab? Well, the simple and unsatisfying answer is: They’re the Uber of Southeast Asia."
- munchor 9y ago
  Did you read the full article? It's a long read but the logic is quite well explained. Whether you agree with the logic or not is another thing but it is definitely explained in the article and cannot be summarized by your quote.
- ian0 9y ago
  They aren't really the Uber of Southeast Asia. They are more like "the potential Alipay/Wechat" of south east Asia. And given those apps have managed to re-arrange e-comm, on demand, banking & payments industries over the course of a few years id say they are pretty innovative. Take a look at what Kudo (a grab acquisition) does for example. Also agree with the comment below re countries with high un-employment. At least here in Indonesia on-demand services seem to have made a net positive impact on income levels for low income demographics. Hopefully when one emerges as the victor some regulations are put in place to make sure this remains the case.
  - ian0 9y ago
    Only on HN would you be confused whether the down-vote was for defending On-Demand services or talking about regulating them :P
    - cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
      Probably downvoted because your comment is irrelevant to the point you're criticizing. "uber of southeast asia", "alipay of southeast asia", "wechat of southeast asia" all that doesn't matter in this context. They're all unoriginal. Parent was saying how OP is claiming to have left Google because they are unoriginal and frame themselves against competition. That's exactly what "X of Y" is. Doesn't matter what X, or Y is. That's what that expression is designed to do.
masonic 9y ago
"’s not uncommon for people in Southeast Asia to get jobs as drivers and make 3 to 5 times their previous income." Not unlike how Uber drivers did. At first.
ian0 9y ago
:( I loved this authors previous blog posts but man this one has a lot of inaccuracies - People don't trust apps more than they do banks. Traditional bank accounts are expensive (for bank & users) and its this has been the primary limiter of financial inclusion. Mobile wallets reduce branch costs. Mobile wallets like Grab, where the "bank" has a few hundred thousand employee / customers and millions of potential users to sell to have a great head start. - People use grab-pay / go-pay instead of cash because you get a big discount on services when you do. They need to this, because cash-in to mobile wallets is such a pain. And no, they don't have much trust in apps. Subsidies can be reduced of course as they cement habit and provide more utility from the app (hence the rush for merchants & new use cases). - Credit card fraud doesn't stop people from applying for credit cards. Central bank regulations on ownership criteria do. As does financial prudence (& religious reasons here). - The NO TIPPING signs at Jakarta Airport are to let you know its a free service. Because tipping parking attendants is commonplace. Its not related to bribary. - "Thieves are everywhere". Not gonna comment on that one. But I will on the "the evil taxi drivers in cahoots with the police" one. If this was commonplace there would obviously not be much demand for the legions of taxi's that operated before online apps came around. Once, I was ripped off by a guy offering a hotel in a train station in Rome. It doesn't mean hotels in Rome are inherently untrustworthy. The latter part of the article is pretty accurate - Grab & Gojek are have made huge improvements in employment and financial inclusion. They have opened up the door to insanely cool new services and Id struggle to think of tech companies who have made such a huge impact into daily life here (Including FB & the like). Its also extremely likely that one of them will become the Alipay/Wechat of SEA and re-arrange the banking & e-comm landscapes too over the next few years.
- ponyfleisch 9y ago
  > - "Thieves are everywhere". Not gonna comment on that one. But I will on the "the evil taxi drivers in cahoots with the police" one. If this was commonplace there would obviously not be much demand for the legions of taxi's that operated before online apps came around. Taking taxis in most of SEA (and China), at least as a white foreigner, is a gamble every time. In KL, it takes me about 3 times each time to get a taxi that doesn't try to charge me a fixed fare, which is usually about 3x the normal fare. On my last two visits to Shanghai, i had one ride each time where the driver was "asking" for extra money by yelling and in one case threatening physical violence. In Bangkok it much depends on the location. Worst case you'll have to ask about 5 parked taxis before one agrees to use the meter. Before Grab/Uber, there were not many alternatives to taxis, but that does not mean that taxis were providing good service.
jondubois 9y ago
>> Grab is the biggest startup in the history of Southeast Asia. Grab is fighting the most important battle in the world today, on the biggest stage. I am typing this on a plane coming back from Jakarta, where I just witnessed history in the making. Sounds like this is OP's first startup.
cageface 9y ago
Grab is very popular here in Vietnam but I'm not as enthusiastic about it as Steve is. First of all, taxi service here is great. Taxis are cheap and plentiful and ripoffs are actually quite rare if you use one of the well known companies. Grab is burning VC to undercut the taxi companies and doesn't really deserve a better rep than Uber in that respect. Grab motorbike service is also very popular but in this case also displacing an existing local market of independent moto taxi drivers. I'm not sure how their prices for rides compare but I don't see any obvious improvement in the quality of life for drivers. I'm also less excited by the prospect of food delivery replacing restaurants. Not only does it involve a ton of wasteful packaging, but almost all food suffers a lot in transport. There is no comparison, for example, between a pizza fresh out of the oven and one that's been in a steamy pizza box for 15 minutes.
- slouch 9y ago
  put the oven in the car
  - alain94040 9y ago
    Like zumepizza? Relevant panel discussion at last year's startup conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlW3wau3Lis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlW3wau3Lis
dingleberry 9y ago
afaik, riders' time wasted on resto's queue are not paid also, riders don't get compensation for parking fee so most riders avoid crowded resto and [tall] buildings (have to park and take elevator -- more unpaid time) also, money spent on internet and phone calls are not compensated so u get random whatsapp messages from grab/gojek riders ... and sometimes sms (still costs little money tho), but rarely a phone call
sgift 9y ago
> When this idea inevitably takes off, people are going to be able to order take-out from their neighbors, from anyone in the city who wants to cook their family recipe. It will change cuisine forever. I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. As if such things as hygiene regulations didn't exist and you can just open a restaurant by hanging a sign out and telling someone to deliver whatever you just produced in your kitchen. Well, probably in some part of the world you can. In some part of the world people die of food poisoning all the time, in other parts we learned the hard way that sometimes you need this thing which bothers startups to no end called regulation.
- kemiller2002 9y ago
  Although I agree with you, there is possibly a grain of truth to what he says. There are some states that have regulations for running a (semi) professional kitchen out of a home. It won't be just anyone who can open up a food business and start running it, but it is possible that some people not otherwise able to make it on their own could use this as a marketing vehicle for part time work.
- notyourday 9y ago
  Personally, I always find it funny when those who cut their teeth in a software industry ( which based on profit margins is a toddler ) think that their skills translate into well established industries such as restaurants.
  - vageli 9y ago
    What do you mean by > ..a software industry ( which based on profit margins is a toddler ) I thought software has higher margins than most industries.
    - notyourday 9y ago
      High profit margins imply very immature industry. As industries mature the profit margins drop.
woolvalley 9y ago
Did he try talking to Uber or Lyft? What he described is fairly similar to the other ride sharing companies' realities. As for Didi vs Uber, I think there were some 'government' realities that made it a bit more skewed compared to the rest of the world, much like many other non-chinese companies in China.
- brisance 9y ago
  No horse in the race, but in South-East Asia, Grab does seem to be kicking Uber's ass. In terms of visibility and mindshare. Mainly has to do with the amount of money Softbank and the various government-linked investment companies are pouring into it.
ftoo 9y ago
So, working for an Uber clone that underpays its workers and exists to further enrich its billionaire shareholders is the most exciting thing this guy could find to do with his life? After already making millions off of his past career? This is why people hate tech workers.
- unrequited 9y ago
  I'm sure you must be speaking from a country where everyone is employed. The ground reality is how businesses like these create tons of indirect employment feeding their hunger. This is often overseen as we can't imagine in someone else's shoes.
  - Jedi72 9y ago
    I actually think getting a job delivering food can be a local maxima - you make a few extra bucks, but it ties up all your time and leaves you less open to opportunities and training.
- zerr 9y ago
  > After already making millions off of his past career Having a popular blog is that much appreciated nowadays that he'd have significantly more income than his peers (without blogs)?
rovek 9y ago
I relied on Grab in MY and SG, both app and drivers were excellent, but if we needed a distilled example of how out of touch and tone-deaf tech can be then we need look no further than this article.
dustinmoris 9y ago
> "Today I just want to tell you about my new gig, because I think you’re going to be amazed. In fact I think I can safely predict that no matter who you are, something in this post is going to amaze you." I'm getting super excited! ... a little bit later... > "So what is Grab? Well, the simple and unsatisfying answer is: They’re the Uber of Southeast Asia." Lost me at this point!
reacweb 9y ago
I think that Google has a very well thought long term strategy. The sole aim of Google is AI, strong AI. I would like to say like Terminator, Person of Interest or transhumanism, but each time I lose many karma points. One of their main scope was analyzing web pages. By "accident", this has created a lucrative business (search engine). Google's aim is to keep the money flowing to pay their AI research. For research, Google needs data. That is the aim of gmail or android. The main peril for Google may not be the lack of money, but politicians and reglementations. Google fear to be broken like Microsoft was broken in two because of their monopolistic behavior. Google spends a lot of money to avoid being a monopoly. I think they could make hangout or google+ far better, but this involves the risk of killing the concurrence and disrupting the market. The progress of AI are impressive: in 2016 AlphaGo has reached the level of the best player, at the end of 2017, with alphagozero they compute the time needed (in hours) by a computer to surpass millennia of human knowledge (centuries in chess). Now, computer games are giving handicap stones to world champions at a game that was thought too hard for computers (AI drosophilia). I think Google's strategy is far deeper than short term profit.
- jacksmith21006 9y ago
  Totally agree. It can be summed up with something Larry Page said very early with Google. He was asked about using AI to make search better and he responded that they are using search to make AI better. It is the ultimate long game with many steps on getting there that might not make sense in issolation but all go together.
- syshum 9y ago
  The problem with your theory is there are a TON of evidence it is not in any way reality. For example, if their primary motivations were Preventing Monopoly status, and feeding their AI Research they would be embracing open standards, Federation of services, and a whole host of other things they have rejected the last decade or so. They would have never Killed Reader, they would have never taken Hangouts off XMPP, they would have never killed alot of their API's and services web sites were using, they would have never killed the Search Appliance... I could go on and on and one Google does not have a Grand Master plan playing 5D chess to get to the Singularity.... They are just another Top Heavy Corporation focused on Quarterly earning statements and marred in Internal and External Politics.
rcdwealth 9y ago
People leave companies because they get into problems within a company and do not get along, or are under paid, or otherwise their life is limited. This guy's report is biased, he is simply apostate from Google.
jondubois 9y ago
>> This is not hyperbole. This morning I saw a spy photo of an Indonesian mafia-run operation: a big seedy-looking room full of guys with stacks of phones doing fake ride bookings. WTF? Why would the mafia do fake ride bookings? Who is paying them? Sounds like a certain company is trying to pump up their numbers artificially. The whole ride-sharing thing is a massive bubble and OP's blind enthusiasm only confirms this. When I went to Thailand, taxi was so cheap, I felt compelled to give the driver a 100% tip. Halfway through, the article started to sound like satire. I was expecting to get to the end of the article and see "Just kidding! seriously people; stick to Google..."
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- passiveincomelg 9y ago
  Where in Thailand were you? In Phuket and Bangkok drivers frequently tried to scam me or negoiate very high fixed prices for rides. Grab was perfect for avoiding that. Even when I couldn't get a ride through Grab, it told me what this ride should cost. Basically a cheat code for haggling. :)
- szh14 9y ago
  >> WTF? Why would the mafia do fake ride bookings? Who is paying them? Sounds like a certain company is trying to pump up their numbers artificially. I've heard this is common in markets where startups (/multi-sided platforms) dump a ton of VC money in the form of incentives and offers, in the absence strict ID verification. Even if the customer only pays $x, the driver gets paid $(x+d), and you can make the extra $d per transaction if you played both customer and supplier.
deleted 9y ago
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singsinger 9y ago
This is hilarious to me sitting here in Southeast Asia. I see Grab make a mess of their technology every single day. Grab drivers almost always have to call before they make their way over. Software they use to detect fraudulent accounts is laughable. Several people I know have gotten kicked off the app because they traveled for holiday and were forced to start a new account. Sure whatever. Then Grab turns around kicks them off the app for being "fraudulent".
linkmotif 9y ago
In the beginning of this piece I couldn’t figure out who the author was referring to as Google “customers”: Google users or advertisers? If users, this Google employee didn’t know who the customer was! Then when the author revealed the innovative business they were most excited about, it was pretty difficult to process. Really? This is the exciting innovation you want in life? Take out delivery? Every day I have to remind myself everyone is different.
ggggtez 9y ago
So he complained about Google just copying, and then boasts this new company is going to be "the Uber of South East Asia"? This is in all seriousness the 5th startup I've heard of that is doing this exact thing. And like everyone else here pointed out: the demand doesn't exist. The only explanation is that if they really worked at Google for 13 years, they must have made so much money that they don't care about making good financial decisions anymore.
- edanm 9y ago
  "The only explanation is that if they really worked at Google for 13 years" Just FYI, he's a pretty famous blogger. He also accidentally posted a supposed-to-be-private rant about Google a few years ago, which became pretty famous too. So yes, he really did work at Google for 13 years.
  - ggggtez 9y ago
    That wasn't intended to be a comment of doubt, it was a logical implication, if P then Q. So in that case, I double down on saying he must just have no financial sense to think this idea is going to compete with every other copy cat.
    - edanm 9y ago
      I understand. It read like a statement of doubt, and since you also referred to him as "they", it sounded like you didn't know of him. Just wanted to point out that he's a pretty well known blogger, and in my opinion one of the best software developer bloggers, I highly recommend looking at this past work. Which is not saying I disagree with you about this particular case, it sounds a bit overblown to me too.
hardkids 9y ago
Google landed their ivestment in Go-Jek, and Go-Jek is Google Cloud heavy user. And this guy made a blogpost why he jump to Grab after Google while mentioned Grab is AWS heavy user. Purely advertorial for me :)
PretzelFisch 9y ago
Not related to the story but it's depressing that I can no longer follow Steve in my rss reader. Unless there is a non obvious way to get Medium posts in rss.
- motdiem 9y ago
  Your comment prompted me to look for it. Apparently you can by appending /feed/ before the author's name. so for steve, it would be https://medium.com/feed/@steve.yegge/ https://medium.com/feed/@steve.yegge/ Source: https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/214874118-RSS-feeds https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/214874118-RSS-feed...
draw_down 9y ago
Man, I love reading his writing. “Tango uniform”, fantastic.
zeveb 9y ago
Man, I have missed Steve Yegge's posts and style so much. Can't believe that it's been 13 years that he's been locked up in Google. I always kinda assumed that Google were paying him to write his essays for internal consumption only — not just making him stop blogging completely. Hopefully this means that we'll be hearing more from him in the future. I'm still thankful for him getting me (and thousands of others) pumped up for the Common Lisp renascence of the mid-2000s, and I keep on hoping the world will cotton to its advantages (or — even better — develop something better yet). No dice so far, though.
kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
Ah the innocence of youth... Or in this case, someone's first startup job.
sitkack 9y ago
https://youtu.be/eaCHH5D74Fs?t=21 https://youtu.be/eaCHH5D74Fs?t=21 Steve, I can't think of a better way to satirize the gestalt at Google. Genius! Or maybe sandwich genius, where crowds can critique whether cheese goes over or under the meat.
WisNorCan 9y ago
Steve makes a good point that the largest technology companies have stopped (boldly) innovating. Obviously, all the engineers at the companies still go to work and write code. But with 10x the resources they seem to be outputting 1/10th the innovation. What are the bold innovations to come out of Facebook, Google, Microsoft over the past decade or so that haven't been acquisitions? With Facebook, you have a bunch of work on better targeting ads. Oculus and Instagram are both acquisitions. Amazon is the exception. With Amazon, you have AWS, Alexa, Fresh/Prime Now, while also breaking into new geographies and verticals etc.
perseusprime11 9y ago
I felt like his rant was all over the place this time. I would like to understand his definition of innovation and by that definition, who is innovating and who is not innovating. Google+ example is an ancient one, and the current Google is very different from that. Does he have a problem with Sundar's vision of making Google into a machine learning first company? Does he see the distinction of Alphabet and Google, and the notion of separating the big ideas into Google X? Does he think innovation is easy without failing 100 times?
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
  It often is. we should just ignore it but given that it's Steve Yegge that's not gonna happen.
mindcrime 9y ago
Another note to all the people screaming "muh regulationz. What about t3h food poisioningz???" Anybody... and I mean anybody can already cook for other people in their own kitchen, and serve food to others with absolutely no special legal regulation whatsoever. It's called "invite a bunch of people over for dinner". Or "take a dish to the company pot-luck". Or "take a dish to game night at the local hackerspace". Etc. This is nothing but an extension to what people can already do. And while accidents can always happen, the bottom line is that anybody tempted to take advantage of the "When this idea inevitably takes off, people are going to be able to order take-out from their neighbors, from anyone in the city who wants to cook their family recipe. It will change cuisine forever." bit is almost certainly not interested in killing their customers.
- lazerpants 9y ago
  I agree with you, mostly, but the profit motive does incentivize riskier behavior here. Example: If I am having people over for dinner and accidentally leave out shellfish for too long, I can toss the expensive ingredient and just order pizza or anything else. If I depended on that shellfish to make a living, I would almost certainly risk using it.
  - mindcrime 9y ago
    Fair enough, but there's still a limit to how far you're going to push that line, no? Because a. deep down you're a human being and you don't really want to kill anybody and b. pragmatically you know if you get a reputation for killing customers (or making them sick) your customers will go elsewhere.
    - zeveb 9y ago
      Well, Typhoid Mary was an actually woman who didn't care. But yes, most of the time most people care enough.
magic_beans 9y ago
This guy sounds like he took an Adderall and wrote this.
throwaway324235 9y ago
Does Grab use REST or gRPC?
cromwellian 9y ago
Innovation these days happens around the edges, not necessarily in big step-function creation of new product categories. We remember those, they suck up all the oxygen and inspire a year of me-too funding of fast followers. You hardly notice it the daily innovcation, when it's happening in small steps. Just look at photo/image search, or improvements in low light photography or portraits, in translation, or voice. I think Yegge suffers from the same affliction that actually afflicts Google: a reward structure for new launches, not for perfecting what already exists. Google's problem is often not innovating, it's trying to hard to do something innovative, rather than the boring stuff that actually matters to a lot of customers. I think Google Photos is a perfect example of innovation focused on solving the boring stuff. You can say it's an iPhoto clone, but photo storage and backup is a commodity, it's organization and maintenance that's the real consumer pain in that regard. And as many noted, the irony of the complaint about copying competitors and lack of innovation, and then a feverish, almost religious pitch for yet another O2O gig-economy clone, like the numerous that already exist in China.
bogomipz 9y ago
So much of this post reeks of venture-capital colonialism: >"Aside from Singapore, the traffic infrastructure ranges from bad to terrible to near-nonexistent. (I mean, c’mon, Indonesia alone is 17,000 islands.) The credit-card industry is near-nonexistent." >"And it is growing more rapidly in Southeast Asia, because — as any Asian person will happily tell you — they love their food more than you do." >"I’m getting myself involved in a land war in Asia." >"Asians use smartphones possibly more than anyone else in the world." >"Not so in SEA. Everyone stares happily into their smart phones all the time." It's not the 1300s anymore, many of us "Westerners" have spent time in South East Asia. And one of the great experiences there is going out to dine at night markets, hawker centers and food stalls. Getting food delivered ... not so interesting. I get it that you came back from a company offsite and were eager to show management your enthusiasm but oh how cringeworthy this piece is. Also talking crap about your previous employer as a means of getting publicity for your new one is incredibly tacky. More especially so considering you spent 13 years with them.

311 points by kungfudoi 9y ago

The only way to stop labor practices that involve abusing workers, not paying a living wage or for healthcare, is to say (as a customer and voter) that you will not tolerate this type of business existing. In other words, if company X can only deliver your low price pizza and Diet Coke via abuse of its workers, then that business should not exist. It's a hard leap to make for many people, but a necessary one.

barry-cotter 9y ago
This is a coordination problem, i.e. of the same general class as how to maintain a cartel or avoid a race to the bottom to the cost of producers and benefit of consumers in an oligopolistic market. To summarise; it can’t be done unless the cartel can make and enforce legal contracts divining the market or with more than three market participants. Same reason the bidders for Amazon HQ2 can’t collude; cooperation is really, really hard. You need an enforcement mechanism.
distances 9y ago
The burden to track company behaviour shouldn't be on customers. The normal way to counter this is via unions.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
  It sounds like unions are the new Rust on Hacker News.
  - smacktoward 9y ago
    in both cases, it's unsurprising that when the status quo so obviously sucks as badly as it does that people go looking for alternatives.
  - 18pfsmt 9y ago
    I've got many friends in unions (e.g. pipefitters/welders) and based on the stories they tell me, unions need a 21st century reboot. They need a simple platform to organize/communicate digitally. Do you know of anything that exists like that?
    - Apocryphon 9y ago
      If only there was an industry that was good at building new communications platforms + revamping 20th century institutions.
    - distances 9y ago
      I feel there's a clear difference how people see unions in the US vs. in Europe. I don't have much insight in to the differences, but it would be nice to hear why that is so. I'm a proponent of strong unions with generally binding collective agreements (= collective agreements defining legally binding minimum terms for the whole industry), but I suppose the model won't work everywhere for one reason or another.
mantas 9y ago
Fun story... Major supermarkets in my country announced they're phasing out caged chicken eggs. Vast majority of feedback I saw so far is people pissed off cheapest eggs will be gone. Looks like there's agreement this is conspiracy to rip off customers. So yeah.. I doubt people could gang up on unsustainable businesses as long as they personally pay less.
- limaoscarjuliet 9y ago
  "We are pledging we are in the process of thinking about moving towards streamlining possible future transition to making 10% of <turn really lagre fonts on> EGGS CAGE FREE." Ok, not a direct quote from mayo bottle but you get the gist of it. Now the funny part, my better half has a hotel and restaurant. She has trouble working with good ingredients because people demand crap ones they are used to.
  - mantas 9y ago
    > Now the funny part, my better half has a hotel and restaurant. She has trouble working with good ingredients because people demand crap ones they are used to. That was my exact experience first time I bought high quality peanut butter. The oil had separated and stayed at the top. I thought something went wrong and I was ripped off. Took me some googling to realise that's what happens if the maker don't take away natural nuts oil and don't replace it with palm oil. Took me some time to adjust to natural no-unnecessary-additives jams too. Now cheap knockoffs taste like shit though. The overexposed taste is just too lame and lacks depth.
    - magic_beans 9y ago
      I always thought it was ridiculous that natural peanut butter has the disclaimer "oil will separate." I guess now I know why :) But nothing, NOTHING comes close to freshly blended peanut butter warm from those little blending machines at natural grocery stores or Whole foods.
mindcrime 9y ago
And for the workers for whom that "abuse" is better than the other options? If I have a choice between dying in the street of starvation, or working in a hot kitchen for $2.00 /hour, no healthcare, no breaks, etc., would you deny me that chance to make $2.00 / hour? If so, all I can say is "who the hell do you think you are?"
- davidcbc 9y ago
  As a society we shouldn't make people choose between the two. That's why we have things like a social safety net and minimum wage.

okr 9y ago

Currently staying in indonesia for vacation, i can verify, a lot of green go-jek jackets, not so many grab ones. Personally i use go-jek. Got an sms just like whatsapp, and i was setup. Grab wants me to create an account, meh, so i stopped there. I like the live tracking, so i can see, where the driver is. Helped me a lot to get out and find the driver, as the navigation route is most likely wrong in all these small streets. Hard to give notes, they ignore them anyways. The Go-Jek apps, for each purpose one, meh. The update mess on each day, whenever i get wifi, i hate it. And i see signs everywhere: only drop-off, no go-jek, no grab, no uber. They are pretty vocal about it. So yeah, its a war. Surely it breaks up local schemes of corruption. One can see it, when streets are closed down by types in army clothes, and a caravan of cars enter the streets, with dudes in open jeeps, moustache and laughing. There goes the money. I do not know. There is a global economy and local businesses. I wish it was not a few companies driving the disrupting changes, that will destroy most likely local businesses, that have developed over decades. Sure, people use it and that is good. Good ideas replace ideas not so good anymore in these times. Ah, i dont know. I want tools, that allow people to connect directly in an open market. Without a big company controlling the flow and taking a percentage here and there. But maybe thats the prize to pay for now. Everyone can take a camera now and do tv, its not monopolized anymore by a few. End of rant. I wish that dude good luck. I also have left a well oiled machine to start something else. I do not share his excitement, though. The food delivery business will never be mine except for emergency. That beats crusty, non plastic wrapped 'fresh' together with a few friends. But thats just me. :)

plinkplonk 9y ago
From what I understand Go-Jek is kicking Grab's ass in Indonesia. Go-Jek is presently only in Indonesia, and Grab is probably larger in SEA as a whole , but nothing prevents GoJek from expanding to other countries, so yes major war going on. May the best company win! I think Steve just wrote a great recruiting piece for Grab and Gojek ;-). Both are incredible companies, so all for the good. $Diety knows we need some great companies outside SF. Due Disclosure: (I have no real interest in the ride sharing space but) Some of my friends are driving the tech at GoJek, and they are incredibly sharp people, with great vision and the tech chops to match. If Yegge wanted to be in a war with formidable opponents, he's got it in spades!

ocdtrekkie 9y ago

I actually, because of the app I was reading this on, failed to realize this was a Yegge post until the end. No wonder it was such a good read. Welcome back to the real world, man, hoping we see more blogs from you in the future!

DonHopkins 9y ago
My first thought upon reading the title was "who cares why somebody left Google, unless it's somebody like Steve Yegge."

Animats 9y ago

The view from Shenzhen: Naomi Wu / @RealSexyCyborg / 10 Dec 2017 / Naomi Wu Retweeted Seruko If food delivery cost $0.40USD with no "tip" lots of Western countries might be at a similar place. Cheap migrant labor is the backbone of our e-commerce boom. The way they treat those boys is unforgivable.[1] The gig economy - more cost-effective than slavery. [1] https://twitter.com/realsexycyborg?lang=en https://twitter.com/realsexycyborg?lang=en

belorn 9y ago
Here in Sweden the cost in the cities is usually around $3-$10 with most around $4. The government is also considering to impose some regulars since the drivers only get a portion of the profits and the average earnings turns out to be smaller than minimum wage. Not sure about the other Western countries.
masklinn 9y ago
Actual permalink to the tweet: https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/940058014886780928 https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/940058014886780928 The previous tweets in the thread seem more relevant here: https://twitter.com/BeijingPalmer/status/940010649010233344 https://twitter.com/BeijingPalmer/status/940010649010233344 > I'm generally skeptical of anyone who makes a week-long trip to China and comes back awed by 'how advanced they are in X.' In my experience Chinese academics and firms lie their ass off to visitors. https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/940013406458757120 https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/940013406458757120 > Unfortunately...yes. It's economics- photos of "foreigners looking impressed at X" is pretty much a requirement for any sort of fund raising here. Western counterparts have incentive to play along so they can say "the Chinese are beating us at X" and get more funding back home.
- magic_beans 9y ago
  Her profile pics are basically NSFW...
  - Tsagadai 9y ago

msmith10101 9y ago

Would like to see the gig economy move off of human labor. Do any of these companies like Grab or Go-Jek have much of an autonomy story or any real competitive differentiators? If not, this whole space is otherwise a race to the bottom and a question of who can raise the most money. The fact that money from Softbank and Alphabet is allocated to competitors illustrates that it is very unclear how these companies differ from one another.

Buge 9y ago

He mentions that Uber is losing so much money. But how much money is Grab losing? He says drivers make 3 to 5 times their prior wages. How can grab afford to pay that?

himlion 9y ago
They might say higher efficiency (less downtime), but I doubt the claim.
ciguy 9y ago
I was just talking to my UBer driver in Manila. He made $550 per month working as a registered nurse in one of the largest hospitals here. Driving for Uber he makes $1700 to $2100 per month. I'm assuming Grab pays similarly. I don't think he's really done the math to figure out maintenance and fuel costs, but presumably he's coming out ahead in any case. This is a major issue in developing countries where institutional wage increases have not kept pace with the "gig" economy. So a skilled and educated professional can make 3x to 5x the local wage by working as a virtual assistant or an Uber Driver. This pulls educated professionals out of the labor pool for things like medical and drags down the quality of care. Medical facilities in the Philippines can be really nice, but many doctors and nurses are recent grads and quite frankly completely clueless about anything but the most basic issues.
- piva00 9y ago
  What I am afraid of is that these people payments are being subsidised by VC money, when that money runs out and they have to compete truly based on market self-regulated prices I fear the workers will be getting paid less and less to make up for the costs, it's good for a while but people are becoming dependent on something that is still very unstable.
  - beambot 9y ago
    > people are becoming dependent on something that is still very unstable. What industries would you consider stable today...?
  - 9y ago

thisisit 9y ago

It's a delightful read. I am no fan of Google but people do realize that once a company becomes big innovation has huge costs involved, more people means lesser room for growth and hence the politics, as well as some arrogance of being a large company. That said I kind of disagree with this: Restaurants and food trucks are both about to be obliterated by Peach and Uber Eats. The biggest cost to a restaurant was their location and hence, the rents. Sure using food delivery apps helps them a lot. It also lowers the barrier of running a restaurant. So people might be all in for these apps. But that is one side of the equation. The real question is - How is this a viable business for the food delivery apps? Is the market large enough to make real profits? As an example, most of the food delivery apps in India are not doing great: https://www.vccircle.com/swiggy-lost-rs-1-5-for-every-re-1-it-earned-last-year-revenue-jumped-six-fold/ https://www.vccircle.com/swiggy-lost-rs-1-5-for-every-re-1-i... Swiggy has been the "Uber" of food delivery apps here in India and they have revised their prices upwards quite frequently.

shalmanese 9y ago
Right now, what we have are the first generation of delivery restaurants which is basically "restaurants, only it's delivery". We won't start seeing the real revolution until we start seeing formats built natively around the assumptions of delivery. The second generation of "delivery, only it happens to be restaurants" format is going to look radically different from what we have today. For example, right now, restaurants are naturally incentivized to disperse around the city to take advantage of foot traffic. But this turns logistics into a N x M challenge which is expensive. Delivery restaurants are instead incentivized to cluster together because 1 x M logistics is so much more efficient. Once they cluster, further efficiencies can be unlocked. For example, right now, if there are 10 Asian restaurants in a block, each of them offers steamed rice and each of them owns a rice cooker. If you exist in a cluster and all your orders come from delivery, it no longer makes sense for you to be a "jack of all trades" restaurant, you can just have one restaurant make the 3 - 4 types of rice required for all Asian cuisines and it gets added on as a side for your order. Similar with like, mashed potatoes for Western restaurants, just have one restaurant focus on making the best damn mashed potatoes possible with all sorts of customized mixins and all the other restaurants don't have to deal with mashed potatoes. Prior to delivery restaurants, a "rice and mashed potatoes restaurant" would be totally non-viable. But with the disaggregating effects of delivery, it's now a possibility. Probably the closest analogy I can think of is the Singaporean Hawker centers. Each stall is only responsible for making 2 - 3 things and they make the best damn version of that thing possible. America, for whatever reason, has never managed to produce truly decent food courts so it's a totally different paradigm. On top of that, clustered delivery allows for the sharing of a lot of common infrastructure (HVAC, refrigeration, suppliers, dishwashing services, cleaning services, etc.) in a way that makes the entire enterprise more plug and play. Think AWS instead of dedicated servers. Rather than each kitchen having to hire a cleaning crew or worrying about what happens if the walk in is on the fritz, dedicated teams who specialize in each respective task can deploy it as a service scalably across the entire set of restaurants. Instead of incurring $X00,000 in startup costs, you can instead just lease at $X,000 a month and scale up your spend as you scale up your revenue. All of this requires delivery as a format to get over certain scale humps so that efficiencies can start to be unlocked. But once they do (as they're currently reaching in Asia), we're going to start seeing much more interesting, innovative business models that take delivery as a premise and innovate from there.

beegeezuz 9y ago

"why I left google to join grab" nobody gives a shit! why are people spamming the internet with these "why I did this" articles? who cares why YOU did something!? we all do that we feel is best for us, it's called life, I don't want to know your every move; this isn't twitter!

baba8 9y ago

Wow, that's an impressive recruitment material (apart from being an interesting read, of course)! That works so much better than a bland "We're hiring" page, having the picture painted that way makes it much easier to imagine yourself taking a side in that "war". Is that a new trend? Good luck to Steve!

pronik 9y ago

Just wanted to point out how happy I am that Steve is blogging again. I've missed that a LOT. Welcome back!

crispinb 9y ago

How depressing. Our living planet is collapsing at a dizzying and increasing pace, and not only do our 'best and brightest' (if that's what they are) work largely on trivia designed to accelerate the collapsing trend, they advertise their superficiality with this crude purported messianic zeal. Froth and bubble atop the dank turbid waters.

iso-8859-1 9y ago
Which project should he work on instead?
- HugoDaniel 9y ago
  Linux on the desktop
  - linuxps2 9y ago
    This is the year, I just know it
    - NetOpWibby 9y ago
      Username checks out
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  Not everyone is in a position to make the world a better place through their work, but it would be nice if they didn't actively make it worse.
  - atomashpolskiy 9y ago
    I'd say we desperately need new ways to self-organize to work on things that matter. Working for business, especially when governments are weak and regulation is pretty much non-existent, is a road to hell for the humanity
  - Kratisto 9y ago

reuven 9y ago

Steve Yegge's writing, whether on technology or business (or both), is always delightful to read. If he can start to write more now that he's no longer at Google, then I'm happy not just for him and his new job, but also for the rest of us, who can (hopefully) hear his voice much more often.

mda 9y ago
Delightful? More like excruciatingly long and boring.
- magic_beans 9y ago
  The man needs an editor. Granted, he's enthusiastic and conversational, but he writes like a person who simply transcribed a long, spoken rant.
shoover 9y ago
My hope, as well. I don't care what he writes about. It's all fun and I will carve out the time it takes to read. The longer the better.

drej 9y ago

Not sure I follow the logic. "[Google] stuck in me-too mode and have been for years. They simply don’t have innovation in their DNA any more. And it’s because their eyes are fixed on their competitors, not their customers." [...] "I just witnessed history in the making. (...) I have not seen a land rush this massive since the early days of the Web, and it just might be even bigger. So what is Grab? Well, the simple and unsatisfying answer is: They’re the Uber of Southeast Asia."

munchor 9y ago
Did you read the full article? It's a long read but the logic is quite well explained. Whether you agree with the logic or not is another thing but it is definitely explained in the article and cannot be summarized by your quote.
ian0 9y ago
They aren't really the Uber of Southeast Asia. They are more like "the potential Alipay/Wechat" of south east Asia. And given those apps have managed to re-arrange e-comm, on demand, banking & payments industries over the course of a few years id say they are pretty innovative. Take a look at what Kudo (a grab acquisition) does for example. Also agree with the comment below re countries with high un-employment. At least here in Indonesia on-demand services seem to have made a net positive impact on income levels for low income demographics. Hopefully when one emerges as the victor some regulations are put in place to make sure this remains the case.
- ian0 9y ago
  Only on HN would you be confused whether the down-vote was for defending On-Demand services or talking about regulating them :P
  - cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
    Probably downvoted because your comment is irrelevant to the point you're criticizing. "uber of southeast asia", "alipay of southeast asia", "wechat of southeast asia" all that doesn't matter in this context. They're all unoriginal. Parent was saying how OP is claiming to have left Google because they are unoriginal and frame themselves against competition. That's exactly what "X of Y" is. Doesn't matter what X, or Y is. That's what that expression is designed to do.

masonic 9y ago

"’s not uncommon for people in Southeast Asia to get jobs as drivers and make 3 to 5 times their previous income." Not unlike how Uber drivers did. At first.

ian0 9y ago

:( I loved this authors previous blog posts but man this one has a lot of inaccuracies - People don't trust apps more than they do banks. Traditional bank accounts are expensive (for bank & users) and its this has been the primary limiter of financial inclusion. Mobile wallets reduce branch costs. Mobile wallets like Grab, where the "bank" has a few hundred thousand employee / customers and millions of potential users to sell to have a great head start. - People use grab-pay / go-pay instead of cash because you get a big discount on services when you do. They need to this, because cash-in to mobile wallets is such a pain. And no, they don't have much trust in apps. Subsidies can be reduced of course as they cement habit and provide more utility from the app (hence the rush for merchants & new use cases). - Credit card fraud doesn't stop people from applying for credit cards. Central bank regulations on ownership criteria do. As does financial prudence (& religious reasons here). - The NO TIPPING signs at Jakarta Airport are to let you know its a free service. Because tipping parking attendants is commonplace. Its not related to bribary. - "Thieves are everywhere". Not gonna comment on that one. But I will on the "the evil taxi drivers in cahoots with the police" one. If this was commonplace there would obviously not be much demand for the legions of taxi's that operated before online apps came around. Once, I was ripped off by a guy offering a hotel in a train station in Rome. It doesn't mean hotels in Rome are inherently untrustworthy. The latter part of the article is pretty accurate - Grab & Gojek are have made huge improvements in employment and financial inclusion. They have opened up the door to insanely cool new services and Id struggle to think of tech companies who have made such a huge impact into daily life here (Including FB & the like). Its also extremely likely that one of them will become the Alipay/Wechat of SEA and re-arrange the banking & e-comm landscapes too over the next few years.

ponyfleisch 9y ago
> - "Thieves are everywhere". Not gonna comment on that one. But I will on the "the evil taxi drivers in cahoots with the police" one. If this was commonplace there would obviously not be much demand for the legions of taxi's that operated before online apps came around. Taking taxis in most of SEA (and China), at least as a white foreigner, is a gamble every time. In KL, it takes me about 3 times each time to get a taxi that doesn't try to charge me a fixed fare, which is usually about 3x the normal fare. On my last two visits to Shanghai, i had one ride each time where the driver was "asking" for extra money by yelling and in one case threatening physical violence. In Bangkok it much depends on the location. Worst case you'll have to ask about 5 parked taxis before one agrees to use the meter. Before Grab/Uber, there were not many alternatives to taxis, but that does not mean that taxis were providing good service.

jondubois 9y ago

>> Grab is the biggest startup in the history of Southeast Asia. Grab is fighting the most important battle in the world today, on the biggest stage. I am typing this on a plane coming back from Jakarta, where I just witnessed history in the making. Sounds like this is OP's first startup.

cageface 9y ago

Grab is very popular here in Vietnam but I'm not as enthusiastic about it as Steve is. First of all, taxi service here is great. Taxis are cheap and plentiful and ripoffs are actually quite rare if you use one of the well known companies. Grab is burning VC to undercut the taxi companies and doesn't really deserve a better rep than Uber in that respect. Grab motorbike service is also very popular but in this case also displacing an existing local market of independent moto taxi drivers. I'm not sure how their prices for rides compare but I don't see any obvious improvement in the quality of life for drivers. I'm also less excited by the prospect of food delivery replacing restaurants. Not only does it involve a ton of wasteful packaging, but almost all food suffers a lot in transport. There is no comparison, for example, between a pizza fresh out of the oven and one that's been in a steamy pizza box for 15 minutes.

slouch 9y ago
put the oven in the car
- alain94040 9y ago
  Like zumepizza? Relevant panel discussion at last year's startup conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlW3wau3Lis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlW3wau3Lis

dingleberry 9y ago

afaik, riders' time wasted on resto's queue are not paid also, riders don't get compensation for parking fee so most riders avoid crowded resto and [tall] buildings (have to park and take elevator -- more unpaid time) also, money spent on internet and phone calls are not compensated so u get random whatsapp messages from grab/gojek riders ... and sometimes sms (still costs little money tho), but rarely a phone call

sgift 9y ago

> When this idea inevitably takes off, people are going to be able to order take-out from their neighbors, from anyone in the city who wants to cook their family recipe. It will change cuisine forever. I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. As if such things as hygiene regulations didn't exist and you can just open a restaurant by hanging a sign out and telling someone to deliver whatever you just produced in your kitchen. Well, probably in some part of the world you can. In some part of the world people die of food poisoning all the time, in other parts we learned the hard way that sometimes you need this thing which bothers startups to no end called regulation.

kemiller2002 9y ago
Although I agree with you, there is possibly a grain of truth to what he says. There are some states that have regulations for running a (semi) professional kitchen out of a home. It won't be just anyone who can open up a food business and start running it, but it is possible that some people not otherwise able to make it on their own could use this as a marketing vehicle for part time work.
notyourday 9y ago
Personally, I always find it funny when those who cut their teeth in a software industry ( which based on profit margins is a toddler ) think that their skills translate into well established industries such as restaurants.
- vageli 9y ago
  What do you mean by > ..a software industry ( which based on profit margins is a toddler ) I thought software has higher margins than most industries.
  - notyourday 9y ago
    High profit margins imply very immature industry. As industries mature the profit margins drop.

woolvalley 9y ago

Did he try talking to Uber or Lyft? What he described is fairly similar to the other ride sharing companies' realities. As for Didi vs Uber, I think there were some 'government' realities that made it a bit more skewed compared to the rest of the world, much like many other non-chinese companies in China.

brisance 9y ago
No horse in the race, but in South-East Asia, Grab does seem to be kicking Uber's ass. In terms of visibility and mindshare. Mainly has to do with the amount of money Softbank and the various government-linked investment companies are pouring into it.

ftoo 9y ago

So, working for an Uber clone that underpays its workers and exists to further enrich its billionaire shareholders is the most exciting thing this guy could find to do with his life? After already making millions off of his past career? This is why people hate tech workers.

unrequited 9y ago
I'm sure you must be speaking from a country where everyone is employed. The ground reality is how businesses like these create tons of indirect employment feeding their hunger. This is often overseen as we can't imagine in someone else's shoes.
- Jedi72 9y ago
  I actually think getting a job delivering food can be a local maxima - you make a few extra bucks, but it ties up all your time and leaves you less open to opportunities and training.
zerr 9y ago
> After already making millions off of his past career Having a popular blog is that much appreciated nowadays that he'd have significantly more income than his peers (without blogs)?

rovek 9y ago

I relied on Grab in MY and SG, both app and drivers were excellent, but if we needed a distilled example of how out of touch and tone-deaf tech can be then we need look no further than this article.

dustinmoris 9y ago

> "Today I just want to tell you about my new gig, because I think you’re going to be amazed. In fact I think I can safely predict that no matter who you are, something in this post is going to amaze you." I'm getting super excited! ... a little bit later... > "So what is Grab? Well, the simple and unsatisfying answer is: They’re the Uber of Southeast Asia." Lost me at this point!

reacweb 9y ago

I think that Google has a very well thought long term strategy. The sole aim of Google is AI, strong AI. I would like to say like Terminator, Person of Interest or transhumanism, but each time I lose many karma points. One of their main scope was analyzing web pages. By "accident", this has created a lucrative business (search engine). Google's aim is to keep the money flowing to pay their AI research. For research, Google needs data. That is the aim of gmail or android. The main peril for Google may not be the lack of money, but politicians and reglementations. Google fear to be broken like Microsoft was broken in two because of their monopolistic behavior. Google spends a lot of money to avoid being a monopoly. I think they could make hangout or google+ far better, but this involves the risk of killing the concurrence and disrupting the market. The progress of AI are impressive: in 2016 AlphaGo has reached the level of the best player, at the end of 2017, with alphagozero they compute the time needed (in hours) by a computer to surpass millennia of human knowledge (centuries in chess). Now, computer games are giving handicap stones to world champions at a game that was thought too hard for computers (AI drosophilia). I think Google's strategy is far deeper than short term profit.

jacksmith21006 9y ago
Totally agree. It can be summed up with something Larry Page said very early with Google. He was asked about using AI to make search better and he responded that they are using search to make AI better. It is the ultimate long game with many steps on getting there that might not make sense in issolation but all go together.
syshum 9y ago
The problem with your theory is there are a TON of evidence it is not in any way reality. For example, if their primary motivations were Preventing Monopoly status, and feeding their AI Research they would be embracing open standards, Federation of services, and a whole host of other things they have rejected the last decade or so. They would have never Killed Reader, they would have never taken Hangouts off XMPP, they would have never killed alot of their API's and services web sites were using, they would have never killed the Search Appliance... I could go on and on and one Google does not have a Grand Master plan playing 5D chess to get to the Singularity.... They are just another Top Heavy Corporation focused on Quarterly earning statements and marred in Internal and External Politics.

rcdwealth 9y ago

People leave companies because they get into problems within a company and do not get along, or are under paid, or otherwise their life is limited. This guy's report is biased, he is simply apostate from Google.

jondubois 9y ago

>> This is not hyperbole. This morning I saw a spy photo of an Indonesian mafia-run operation: a big seedy-looking room full of guys with stacks of phones doing fake ride bookings. WTF? Why would the mafia do fake ride bookings? Who is paying them? Sounds like a certain company is trying to pump up their numbers artificially. The whole ride-sharing thing is a massive bubble and OP's blind enthusiasm only confirms this. When I went to Thailand, taxi was so cheap, I felt compelled to give the driver a 100% tip. Halfway through, the article started to sound like satire. I was expecting to get to the end of the article and see "Just kidding! seriously people; stick to Google..."

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passiveincomelg 9y ago
Where in Thailand were you? In Phuket and Bangkok drivers frequently tried to scam me or negoiate very high fixed prices for rides. Grab was perfect for avoiding that. Even when I couldn't get a ride through Grab, it told me what this ride should cost. Basically a cheat code for haggling. :)
szh14 9y ago
>> WTF? Why would the mafia do fake ride bookings? Who is paying them? Sounds like a certain company is trying to pump up their numbers artificially. I've heard this is common in markets where startups (/multi-sided platforms) dump a ton of VC money in the form of incentives and offers, in the absence strict ID verification. Even if the customer only pays $x, the driver gets paid $(x+d), and you can make the extra $d per transaction if you played both customer and supplier.

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singsinger 9y ago

This is hilarious to me sitting here in Southeast Asia. I see Grab make a mess of their technology every single day. Grab drivers almost always have to call before they make their way over. Software they use to detect fraudulent accounts is laughable. Several people I know have gotten kicked off the app because they traveled for holiday and were forced to start a new account. Sure whatever. Then Grab turns around kicks them off the app for being "fraudulent".

linkmotif 9y ago

In the beginning of this piece I couldn’t figure out who the author was referring to as Google “customers”: Google users or advertisers? If users, this Google employee didn’t know who the customer was! Then when the author revealed the innovative business they were most excited about, it was pretty difficult to process. Really? This is the exciting innovation you want in life? Take out delivery? Every day I have to remind myself everyone is different.

ggggtez 9y ago

So he complained about Google just copying, and then boasts this new company is going to be "the Uber of South East Asia"? This is in all seriousness the 5th startup I've heard of that is doing this exact thing. And like everyone else here pointed out: the demand doesn't exist. The only explanation is that if they really worked at Google for 13 years, they must have made so much money that they don't care about making good financial decisions anymore.

edanm 9y ago
"The only explanation is that if they really worked at Google for 13 years" Just FYI, he's a pretty famous blogger. He also accidentally posted a supposed-to-be-private rant about Google a few years ago, which became pretty famous too. So yes, he really did work at Google for 13 years.
- ggggtez 9y ago
  That wasn't intended to be a comment of doubt, it was a logical implication, if P then Q. So in that case, I double down on saying he must just have no financial sense to think this idea is going to compete with every other copy cat.
  - edanm 9y ago
    I understand. It read like a statement of doubt, and since you also referred to him as "they", it sounded like you didn't know of him. Just wanted to point out that he's a pretty well known blogger, and in my opinion one of the best software developer bloggers, I highly recommend looking at this past work. Which is not saying I disagree with you about this particular case, it sounds a bit overblown to me too.

hardkids 9y ago

Google landed their ivestment in Go-Jek, and Go-Jek is Google Cloud heavy user. And this guy made a blogpost why he jump to Grab after Google while mentioned Grab is AWS heavy user. Purely advertorial for me :)

PretzelFisch 9y ago

Not related to the story but it's depressing that I can no longer follow Steve in my rss reader. Unless there is a non obvious way to get Medium posts in rss.

motdiem 9y ago
Your comment prompted me to look for it. Apparently you can by appending /feed/ before the author's name. so for steve, it would be https://medium.com/feed/@steve.yegge/ https://medium.com/feed/@steve.yegge/ Source: https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/214874118-RSS-feeds https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/214874118-RSS-feed...

draw_down 9y ago

Man, I love reading his writing. “Tango uniform”, fantastic.

zeveb 9y ago

Man, I have missed Steve Yegge's posts and style so much. Can't believe that it's been 13 years that he's been locked up in Google. I always kinda assumed that Google were paying him to write his essays for internal consumption only — not just making him stop blogging completely. Hopefully this means that we'll be hearing more from him in the future. I'm still thankful for him getting me (and thousands of others) pumped up for the Common Lisp renascence of the mid-2000s, and I keep on hoping the world will cotton to its advantages (or — even better — develop something better yet). No dice so far, though.

kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago

Ah the innocence of youth... Or in this case, someone's first startup job.

sitkack 9y ago

https://youtu.be/eaCHH5D74Fs?t=21 https://youtu.be/eaCHH5D74Fs?t=21 Steve, I can't think of a better way to satirize the gestalt at Google. Genius! Or maybe sandwich genius, where crowds can critique whether cheese goes over or under the meat.

WisNorCan 9y ago

Steve makes a good point that the largest technology companies have stopped (boldly) innovating. Obviously, all the engineers at the companies still go to work and write code. But with 10x the resources they seem to be outputting 1/10th the innovation. What are the bold innovations to come out of Facebook, Google, Microsoft over the past decade or so that haven't been acquisitions? With Facebook, you have a bunch of work on better targeting ads. Oculus and Instagram are both acquisitions. Amazon is the exception. With Amazon, you have AWS, Alexa, Fresh/Prime Now, while also breaking into new geographies and verticals etc.

perseusprime11 9y ago

I felt like his rant was all over the place this time. I would like to understand his definition of innovation and by that definition, who is innovating and who is not innovating. Google+ example is an ancient one, and the current Google is very different from that. Does he have a problem with Sundar's vision of making Google into a machine learning first company? Does he see the distinction of Alphabet and Google, and the notion of separating the big ideas into Google X? Does he think innovation is easy without failing 100 times?

kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
It often is. we should just ignore it but given that it's Steve Yegge that's not gonna happen.

mindcrime 9y ago

Another note to all the people screaming "muh regulationz. What about t3h food poisioningz???" Anybody... and I mean anybody can already cook for other people in their own kitchen, and serve food to others with absolutely no special legal regulation whatsoever. It's called "invite a bunch of people over for dinner". Or "take a dish to the company pot-luck". Or "take a dish to game night at the local hackerspace". Etc. This is nothing but an extension to what people can already do. And while accidents can always happen, the bottom line is that anybody tempted to take advantage of the "When this idea inevitably takes off, people are going to be able to order take-out from their neighbors, from anyone in the city who wants to cook their family recipe. It will change cuisine forever." bit is almost certainly not interested in killing their customers.

lazerpants 9y ago
I agree with you, mostly, but the profit motive does incentivize riskier behavior here. Example: If I am having people over for dinner and accidentally leave out shellfish for too long, I can toss the expensive ingredient and just order pizza or anything else. If I depended on that shellfish to make a living, I would almost certainly risk using it.
- mindcrime 9y ago
  Fair enough, but there's still a limit to how far you're going to push that line, no? Because a. deep down you're a human being and you don't really want to kill anybody and b. pragmatically you know if you get a reputation for killing customers (or making them sick) your customers will go elsewhere.
  - zeveb 9y ago
    Well, Typhoid Mary was an actually woman who didn't care. But yes, most of the time most people care enough.

magic_beans 9y ago

This guy sounds like he took an Adderall and wrote this.

throwaway324235 9y ago

Does Grab use REST or gRPC?

cromwellian 9y ago

Innovation these days happens around the edges, not necessarily in big step-function creation of new product categories. We remember those, they suck up all the oxygen and inspire a year of me-too funding of fast followers. You hardly notice it the daily innovcation, when it's happening in small steps. Just look at photo/image search, or improvements in low light photography or portraits, in translation, or voice. I think Yegge suffers from the same affliction that actually afflicts Google: a reward structure for new launches, not for perfecting what already exists. Google's problem is often not innovating, it's trying to hard to do something innovative, rather than the boring stuff that actually matters to a lot of customers. I think Google Photos is a perfect example of innovation focused on solving the boring stuff. You can say it's an iPhoto clone, but photo storage and backup is a commodity, it's organization and maintenance that's the real consumer pain in that regard. And as many noted, the irony of the complaint about copying competitors and lack of innovation, and then a feverish, almost religious pitch for yet another O2O gig-economy clone, like the numerous that already exist in China.

bogomipz 9y ago

So much of this post reeks of venture-capital colonialism: >"Aside from Singapore, the traffic infrastructure ranges from bad to terrible to near-nonexistent. (I mean, c’mon, Indonesia alone is 17,000 islands.) The credit-card industry is near-nonexistent." >"And it is growing more rapidly in Southeast Asia, because — as any Asian person will happily tell you — they love their food more than you do." >"I’m getting myself involved in a land war in Asia." >"Asians use smartphones possibly more than anyone else in the world." >"Not so in SEA. Everyone stares happily into their smart phones all the time." It's not the 1300s anymore, many of us "Westerners" have spent time in South East Asia. And one of the great experiences there is going out to dine at night markets, hawker centers and food stalls. Getting food delivered ... not so interesting. I get it that you came back from a company offsite and were eager to show management your enthusiasm but oh how cringeworthy this piece is. Also talking crap about your previous employer as a means of getting publicity for your new one is incredibly tacky. More especially so considering you spent 13 years with them.