5 ms·

I think you might be missing the bigger picture. 5 years ago these views would not have found any traction because nearly everyone loved Google. The general lev

I think you might be missing the bigger picture. 5 years ago these views would not have found any traction because nearly everyone loved Google. The general level of hatred in the community towards Google has increased significantly in that time. In my estimation this is due entirely to Google's own behavior since Sundar Pichai became CEO. When your CEO has an inability to resolve conflict in the direction of positive sum solutions, the losers of the zero sum game are going to hate you intensely and will certainly not come to your defense when you are attacked.

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
I honestly doubt that any other CEO would have made any difference. Google's business model is fundamentally based on data mining as much as possible about their users, and what's changed in the past couple years is (a) a much greater awareness of the potential negative consequences of this data collection and (b) the sense that the American internet giants are becoming unstoppable juggernauts. The hate against Google was inevitable.
- originalsimba 8y ago
  > I honestly doubt that any other CEO would have made any difference. Look at the huge difference made when the Walt Disney Corporation fired disgraced CEO Michael Eisner. They were having serious problems dealing with the new media markets, such as suing their fans, and many considered them one of the worst corporations in the world in terms of their contributions. The internet was flooded with the Cease and Desists from Disney's legal department which became an industrial threat-machine. Now it's 180 degrees different. Disney doesn't sue their fans anymore, they've got a healthy approach to online media, they don't even shut down most youtube fan-pages anymore. Public opinion of the Walt Disney Corporation is once again positive, their movies are once again original and interesting, and once again they're making a ton of money. All of this is the direct result of replacing their rotten-to-the-core CEO. The CEO is important, even when they don't seem so.
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
  > Google's business model is fundamentally based on data mining You see, the point is, it doesn’t have to be.
  - hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
    Not without being a completely different company. Google earns 90 percent of its revenue from advertising, and the amount they would be able to earn would go down significantly if they weren't able to provide highly granular targeting info to their advertisers. Saying "the point is, it doesn't have to be" is like saying "Apple doesn't have to be a designed-focused company." True, they don't have to be, but they are, and that is a huge reason they are successful.
    - musage 8y ago
      > Not without being a completely different company. Yeah, like actually being the company they pretended to be to get their feet into all sorts of doors.
- alexryan 8y ago
  There is truth to this. I would suggest, however, that it is at least theoretically possible to maintain good will and strong relationships with the community, even as your power grows, so long as the bonds of trust are rock solid. The most effective way I know to do that is to refuse to contribute to the polarization and by always choosing to be on the side of the win-win solution. By firing James Damore, by allowing YouTube videos to be demonetized for holding the wrong opinions, etc. Sundar Pichai has destroyed the bonds of trust. It takes backbone to stand up to the ideologically possessed who are determined to play the zero sum game and to persuade them that their needs can be more sustainably met by other means. Sundar Pichai has no backbone! Nobody has any respect for a weak leader who habitually chooses the easiest path without regard to the long term consequences.
  - hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
    Sorry, but I think this is complete BS. Sundar Pichai was put into an absolute no-win situation with the James Damore issue. While I agree a lot of the reaction to Damore's "manifesto" seemed knee-jerk and groupthink, I absolutely think that anyone with half an ounce of emotional intelligence should have anticipated that reaction, and should have known that writing that as he did would have been completely counter-productive and cause a huge shit show for the company. Do you honestly believe that if Pichai had kept Damore around that it would have engendered good relationships with "the community"? If so I hate to break to you but "the community" is a lot more than people who think like you.
    - musage 8y ago
      > I absolutely think that anyone with half an ounce of emotional intelligence should have anticipated that reaction, and should have known that writing that as he did would have been completely counter-productive and cause a huge shit show for the company. He wrote it in an internal group dedicated to the very subject he wrote about. It got leaked and distorted, and I can't even count how often the whole context got twisted in the exact same way as you just twisted it. Who leaked it? Dunno. What's so bad about it? Can't say. But one thing is sure, the person who ended up losing their job is to blame. And of course the people who just can't even be bothered to get fact one of it straight while signing it off aren't spineless in the least. How would that even work, all people have spines.

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago

I honestly doubt that any other CEO would have made any difference. Google's business model is fundamentally based on data mining as much as possible about their users, and what's changed in the past couple years is (a) a much greater awareness of the potential negative consequences of this data collection and (b) the sense that the American internet giants are becoming unstoppable juggernauts. The hate against Google was inevitable.

originalsimba 8y ago
> I honestly doubt that any other CEO would have made any difference. Look at the huge difference made when the Walt Disney Corporation fired disgraced CEO Michael Eisner. They were having serious problems dealing with the new media markets, such as suing their fans, and many considered them one of the worst corporations in the world in terms of their contributions. The internet was flooded with the Cease and Desists from Disney's legal department which became an industrial threat-machine. Now it's 180 degrees different. Disney doesn't sue their fans anymore, they've got a healthy approach to online media, they don't even shut down most youtube fan-pages anymore. Public opinion of the Walt Disney Corporation is once again positive, their movies are once again original and interesting, and once again they're making a ton of money. All of this is the direct result of replacing their rotten-to-the-core CEO. The CEO is important, even when they don't seem so.
dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
> Google's business model is fundamentally based on data mining You see, the point is, it doesn’t have to be.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
  Not without being a completely different company. Google earns 90 percent of its revenue from advertising, and the amount they would be able to earn would go down significantly if they weren't able to provide highly granular targeting info to their advertisers. Saying "the point is, it doesn't have to be" is like saying "Apple doesn't have to be a designed-focused company." True, they don't have to be, but they are, and that is a huge reason they are successful.
  - musage 8y ago
    > Not without being a completely different company. Yeah, like actually being the company they pretended to be to get their feet into all sorts of doors.
alexryan 8y ago
There is truth to this. I would suggest, however, that it is at least theoretically possible to maintain good will and strong relationships with the community, even as your power grows, so long as the bonds of trust are rock solid. The most effective way I know to do that is to refuse to contribute to the polarization and by always choosing to be on the side of the win-win solution. By firing James Damore, by allowing YouTube videos to be demonetized for holding the wrong opinions, etc. Sundar Pichai has destroyed the bonds of trust. It takes backbone to stand up to the ideologically possessed who are determined to play the zero sum game and to persuade them that their needs can be more sustainably met by other means. Sundar Pichai has no backbone! Nobody has any respect for a weak leader who habitually chooses the easiest path without regard to the long term consequences.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
  Sorry, but I think this is complete BS. Sundar Pichai was put into an absolute no-win situation with the James Damore issue. While I agree a lot of the reaction to Damore's "manifesto" seemed knee-jerk and groupthink, I absolutely think that anyone with half an ounce of emotional intelligence should have anticipated that reaction, and should have known that writing that as he did would have been completely counter-productive and cause a huge shit show for the company. Do you honestly believe that if Pichai had kept Damore around that it would have engendered good relationships with "the community"? If so I hate to break to you but "the community" is a lot more than people who think like you.
  - musage 8y ago
    > I absolutely think that anyone with half an ounce of emotional intelligence should have anticipated that reaction, and should have known that writing that as he did would have been completely counter-productive and cause a huge shit show for the company. He wrote it in an internal group dedicated to the very subject he wrote about. It got leaked and distorted, and I can't even count how often the whole context got twisted in the exact same way as you just twisted it. Who leaked it? Dunno. What's so bad about it? Can't say. But one thing is sure, the person who ended up losing their job is to blame. And of course the people who just can't even be bothered to get fact one of it straight while signing it off aren't spineless in the least. How would that even work, all people have spines.