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“a gender pay gap and lack of diversity could make it difficult for the company to hire and retain workers” The solution to a constrained maximization is never

by jl2718 8y ago

“a gender pay gap and lack of diversity could make it difficult for the company to hire and retain workers” The solution to a constrained maximization is never greater than the unconstrained solution. So how does adding a diversity constraint make it easier to hire? I often wonder about the supposed rigor of the hiring process. Google is being eaten from the inside. Will not last.

adventured 8y ago
The extreme difficulty and extraordinary financial cost of challenging their search product, guarantees it will in fact last. It can't be replaced until or unless there's a direct hit / directly competing technology inflection that involves search that they miss (for example, had they missed mobile and not acquired & developed Android, that could have been an opening). It's that way for the exact same reason Microsoft being a mess to varying degrees for 10-15 years didn't wreck the company because the Windows + Office duopoly perpetually printed vast profit. Even when they screwed up the products at times. The tolerance level of insanity, chaos, idiocy, whatever, that can occur within Google before it's threatening to their existence, is far beyond where they're at now. The search engine has no meaningful competitive threats currently, they can coast for at least a decade on the search product as it is now. Financially, they have net tangible assets that make them look more like Berkshire Hathaway than a tech company. Their net tangible assets are greater than Apple's, because they're basically debt free ($140b in net tangibles, $102b in cash). Microsoft's net tangibles are $28b by comparison. With Google's balance sheet and the search monopoly, they can spin in circles juggling mistake after mistake, with a rotting culture, for many years and have nothing to seriously worry about.
- pandaman 8y ago
  History shows us that the ability to survive chaos and general incompetency is orthogonal to the ability to withstand deliberate and focused sabotage. For the former you just need to be big, heavy and slow so the chaotic movements decay and extinguish each other. And Google is, as you noticed, very well suited for that. The latter, however, requires active counter-actions IMHO. Being big and slow is not going to protect you from the "fifth column". It's not like Google has 0 competition - Baidu, Yandex, even Bing, all can easily take its place in search when/if an opportunity opens.

by jl2718 8y ago

adventured 8y ago

The extreme difficulty and extraordinary financial cost of challenging their search product, guarantees it will in fact last. It can't be replaced until or unless there's a direct hit / directly competing technology inflection that involves search that they miss (for example, had they missed mobile and not acquired & developed Android, that could have been an opening). It's that way for the exact same reason Microsoft being a mess to varying degrees for 10-15 years didn't wreck the company because the Windows + Office duopoly perpetually printed vast profit. Even when they screwed up the products at times. The tolerance level of insanity, chaos, idiocy, whatever, that can occur within Google before it's threatening to their existence, is far beyond where they're at now. The search engine has no meaningful competitive threats currently, they can coast for at least a decade on the search product as it is now. Financially, they have net tangible assets that make them look more like Berkshire Hathaway than a tech company. Their net tangible assets are greater than Apple's, because they're basically debt free ($140b in net tangibles, $102b in cash). Microsoft's net tangibles are $28b by comparison. With Google's balance sheet and the search monopoly, they can spin in circles juggling mistake after mistake, with a rotting culture, for many years and have nothing to seriously worry about.

pandaman 8y ago
History shows us that the ability to survive chaos and general incompetency is orthogonal to the ability to withstand deliberate and focused sabotage. For the former you just need to be big, heavy and slow so the chaotic movements decay and extinguish each other. And Google is, as you noticed, very well suited for that. The latter, however, requires active counter-actions IMHO. Being big and slow is not going to protect you from the "fifth column". It's not like Google has 0 competition - Baidu, Yandex, even Bing, all can easily take its place in search when/if an opportunity opens.