7 ms·

Looks like a duck, acts like a duck. Google lives and dies by their advertising revenue, they made have decided that engineering is a core component that create

by lovich 9y ago

Looks like a duck, acts like a duck. Google lives and dies by their advertising revenue, they made have decided that engineering is a core component that creates all that advertising revenue but it's still just a means to and end

Jyaif 9y ago
I think you've got it backwards. Pretty sure Larry and Sergei don't give a rat's ass about advertisement, they just want to do cool tech (cf investment in AI and self driving cars, among many many other things). Advertisement revenue is a mean to do all this stuff.
- HillaryBriss 9y ago
  Keep in mind that their CFO (a former Wall Street Banker) keeps a careful eye on costs and spending: "CFO Ruth Porat is pushing Google “creatives” to bring their costs under control." http://fortune.com/google-cfo-ruth-porat-most-powerful-women/ http://fortune.com/google-cfo-ruth-porat-most-powerful-women...
- AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
  The co-founders of an enormous company that makes all its revenue from ads... Don't give a rats ass about them? Come on, now. Be reasonable.
- lovich 9y ago
  If that were true then they wouldn't have made decisions that benefited advertising over tech or the product. Do you think they didn't give a rats ass about advertisement when they disabled the "+" operator on search for anything other than google+?
- the-dude 9y ago
  Google was not a business when they only had search. When they came up with the revenue-model(ads), they became a business.
- ironjunkie 9y ago
  That opinion is typical of the overoptimistic tech guy that drinks the Silicon Valley Koolaid. The ONLY incentive for Google is amount of revenue, and that means ads. They are very good to market themselves as a friendly company that cares about engineering more than advertising, but that's Branding and Marketing! And you fell for it.
  - drusepth 9y ago
    The comment you're responding to is referring to Larry and Sergey's motivations, while you're referring to Google (as a company)'s motivations. You both could very well be right. It's (almost always) in a company's best interest to focus on profit. That profit, however, is very often used as a means for the people in charge of that company to march towards their personal motivations, which may not always align 100% with the company (but often overlap enough for a mutual benefit).
- cmurf 9y ago
  Ends justifies the means? The arguments against this are ethics 101, it leads to extremism.
  - rubatuga 9y ago
    Sure, if you're part of the Kantian ethics group. But in terms of utilitarianism, I would strongly argue that Google has done more good than harm.
    - cmurf 9y ago
      Yeah coal and cigarette industries said the same thing, with blinders on, when all claims of health related problems were poopoo'd. They said no one could have known or imagined or predicted, even though they were and they did but it was dismissed by the gatekeepers. I see pretty much total shit knowledge of history, ethics, and philosophy in the tech industry. It intentionally has blinders on, zero imagination for anything other than the good intentions rails it's wants to believe it's on. Oh no one could have known, no one could have predicted, you had no evidence that these bad outcomes were possible. It'll be the same excuses we've seen before, because no one wanted to confront the possibility and how to mitigate complex interactions, they just want the ends because that alone justifies everything. That of course will be convenient when claiming a lack of responsibility for the outcome, shifting the blame, because only good was intended. Now trust us. And the reason why I increasingly don't trust tech, is because the language the industry uses is consistently dismissive of basic concepts in ethics, merely accepting assertions of "good intentions" as sufficient evidence of ethical behavior.
- coliveira 9y ago
  You must be kidding. Maybe this could be true for the founders, maybe they would still be nowadays developing cool technology even if it didn't make any money. This is NOT TRUE for Google. This is a company that exists solely to extract money in form of online advertisement. The moment search stops being the best vehicle for this purpose, they will boot out search to continue on their ways.
fizzledbits 9y ago
At any large company like Google (where I worked for 4 years), if you find a way to leverage a vast existing business (i.e. ads) in what you are offering, then that's naturally an advantage for you. Doing so isn't required to survive as a project within Google and many projects don't fit that mold.
- lovich 9y ago
  The existence of technically focused projects within google doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of their efforts are made with advertising revenue as the overriding concern. I mean fuck, the projects you're describing used to just be called R&D at companies. Xerox invented the PC, the mouse, the GUI and others in their R&D but that didn't change them into a computer company, they were still focused on printers
  - fizzledbits 9y ago
    The ad business funds the majority of what they do, but that doesn't mean everything or even most of what Googlers are doing day to day is tied to ads in some meaningful additional way or that every product can be viewed through that lens. The projects I'm describing aren't all R&D. For example the GCP products aren't dependent upon or strongly connected the their ads businesses. There are many "technically focused projects" that have users but don't relate to ads, as a byproduct of their bottom-up culture (a very real thing there which is sometimes great and other times a massive PITA, especially when trying to accomplish anything cross-PA), or as a response to innovation at other companies. In my experience Google is, for better and worse, not the manifestation of the vision of one or a small number of people, so when I hear intentions ascribed to Google writ large (such as OP's "let's not pretend that they are driven by..."), I laugh. Does that make sense? I don't think we completely disagree.
    - lovich 9y ago
      Google might do all those things but ads still win. Another poster put up a thought experiment about whether google would take a 50% hit to advertising revenue for an improvement in search results. The answer to that would show what Google actually is, and I believe that Google would not take the hit Additionally google is not flat management. As much as it might feel at the moment that it's driven from the ground up, if someone higher up the chain can put the kibosh on something below them on the chain, then it is manager driven
johnchristopher 9y ago
Basic branding : 1. How you perceive yourself 2. How you are perceived 3. How you would like to be perceived
Husafan 9y ago
I don't think this fits the analogy. The DNA was/is search tech long before ads came around. It's like saying Lebron James' DNA is basketball because that's how he makes all his money. In reality, his DNA is his natural athletic abilities. Basketball is something he does well because of it.

by lovich 9y ago

Jyaif 9y ago

I think you've got it backwards. Pretty sure Larry and Sergei don't give a rat's ass about advertisement, they just want to do cool tech (cf investment in AI and self driving cars, among many many other things). Advertisement revenue is a mean to do all this stuff.

HillaryBriss 9y ago
Keep in mind that their CFO (a former Wall Street Banker) keeps a careful eye on costs and spending: "CFO Ruth Porat is pushing Google “creatives” to bring their costs under control." http://fortune.com/google-cfo-ruth-porat-most-powerful-women/ http://fortune.com/google-cfo-ruth-porat-most-powerful-women...
AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
The co-founders of an enormous company that makes all its revenue from ads... Don't give a rats ass about them? Come on, now. Be reasonable.
lovich 9y ago
If that were true then they wouldn't have made decisions that benefited advertising over tech or the product. Do you think they didn't give a rats ass about advertisement when they disabled the "+" operator on search for anything other than google+?
the-dude 9y ago
Google was not a business when they only had search. When they came up with the revenue-model(ads), they became a business.
ironjunkie 9y ago
That opinion is typical of the overoptimistic tech guy that drinks the Silicon Valley Koolaid. The ONLY incentive for Google is amount of revenue, and that means ads. They are very good to market themselves as a friendly company that cares about engineering more than advertising, but that's Branding and Marketing! And you fell for it.
- drusepth 9y ago
  The comment you're responding to is referring to Larry and Sergey's motivations, while you're referring to Google (as a company)'s motivations. You both could very well be right. It's (almost always) in a company's best interest to focus on profit. That profit, however, is very often used as a means for the people in charge of that company to march towards their personal motivations, which may not always align 100% with the company (but often overlap enough for a mutual benefit).
cmurf 9y ago
Ends justifies the means? The arguments against this are ethics 101, it leads to extremism.
- rubatuga 9y ago
  Sure, if you're part of the Kantian ethics group. But in terms of utilitarianism, I would strongly argue that Google has done more good than harm.
  - cmurf 9y ago
    Yeah coal and cigarette industries said the same thing, with blinders on, when all claims of health related problems were poopoo'd. They said no one could have known or imagined or predicted, even though they were and they did but it was dismissed by the gatekeepers. I see pretty much total shit knowledge of history, ethics, and philosophy in the tech industry. It intentionally has blinders on, zero imagination for anything other than the good intentions rails it's wants to believe it's on. Oh no one could have known, no one could have predicted, you had no evidence that these bad outcomes were possible. It'll be the same excuses we've seen before, because no one wanted to confront the possibility and how to mitigate complex interactions, they just want the ends because that alone justifies everything. That of course will be convenient when claiming a lack of responsibility for the outcome, shifting the blame, because only good was intended. Now trust us. And the reason why I increasingly don't trust tech, is because the language the industry uses is consistently dismissive of basic concepts in ethics, merely accepting assertions of "good intentions" as sufficient evidence of ethical behavior.
coliveira 9y ago
You must be kidding. Maybe this could be true for the founders, maybe they would still be nowadays developing cool technology even if it didn't make any money. This is NOT TRUE for Google. This is a company that exists solely to extract money in form of online advertisement. The moment search stops being the best vehicle for this purpose, they will boot out search to continue on their ways.

fizzledbits 9y ago

At any large company like Google (where I worked for 4 years), if you find a way to leverage a vast existing business (i.e. ads) in what you are offering, then that's naturally an advantage for you. Doing so isn't required to survive as a project within Google and many projects don't fit that mold.

lovich 9y ago
The existence of technically focused projects within google doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of their efforts are made with advertising revenue as the overriding concern. I mean fuck, the projects you're describing used to just be called R&D at companies. Xerox invented the PC, the mouse, the GUI and others in their R&D but that didn't change them into a computer company, they were still focused on printers
- fizzledbits 9y ago
  The ad business funds the majority of what they do, but that doesn't mean everything or even most of what Googlers are doing day to day is tied to ads in some meaningful additional way or that every product can be viewed through that lens. The projects I'm describing aren't all R&D. For example the GCP products aren't dependent upon or strongly connected the their ads businesses. There are many "technically focused projects" that have users but don't relate to ads, as a byproduct of their bottom-up culture (a very real thing there which is sometimes great and other times a massive PITA, especially when trying to accomplish anything cross-PA), or as a response to innovation at other companies. In my experience Google is, for better and worse, not the manifestation of the vision of one or a small number of people, so when I hear intentions ascribed to Google writ large (such as OP's "let's not pretend that they are driven by..."), I laugh. Does that make sense? I don't think we completely disagree.
  - lovich 9y ago
    Google might do all those things but ads still win. Another poster put up a thought experiment about whether google would take a 50% hit to advertising revenue for an improvement in search results. The answer to that would show what Google actually is, and I believe that Google would not take the hit Additionally google is not flat management. As much as it might feel at the moment that it's driven from the ground up, if someone higher up the chain can put the kibosh on something below them on the chain, then it is manager driven

johnchristopher 9y ago

Basic branding : 1. How you perceive yourself 2. How you are perceived 3. How you would like to be perceived

Husafan 9y ago

I don't think this fits the analogy. The DNA was/is search tech long before ads came around. It's like saying Lebron James' DNA is basketball because that's how he makes all his money. In reality, his DNA is his natural athletic abilities. Basketball is something he does well because of it.