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Number of project failures and cuts under Larry Page is just amazing. Normally you would expect that founder CEO insist on long term vision and loves to go afte

Number of project failures and cuts under Larry Page is just amazing. Normally you would expect that founder CEO insist on long term vision and loves to go after big bets. Under Larry Page, X had been cut. Boston Dynamics was lost. Robotics effort was shutdown. And now G+. After all these time no one at Google's highly paid smartest on Earth visionaries were able to experiment, try something new and continue fight for social. This is at the time FB is bleeding heavily, is losing trust and people are willing to try something new. Google is one case where it looks like outside traditional CEO Eric Schmidt did much much better not only in operational excellence but also long term big bets including maps, gmail, YouTube, Android etc. Larry Page has nothing comparable to show for in his 7 years of leadership. This might be one reason: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-09-13/larry-page-is-a-no-show-with-google-under-a-harsh-spotlight?srnd=technology-vp https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-09-13/larry-pag...

Cthulhu_ 8y ago
After all these time no one at Google's highly paid smartest on Earth visionaries were able to experiment, try something new and continue fight for social. What? They spent a decade on G+, launched it with much fanfare, annnd it just didn't pan out. Sure, they didn't drive it down Google users' throats as aggressively as they could have (via e.g. Search, Chrome or Gmail) but that really wouldn't have helped them - Facebook didn't grow like that either. Social networks need to grow via organic growth, via word of mouth. Anyway they're cutting their losses finally instead of indulging in the sunk cost fallacy, I say good riddance. You also mention Maps, Gmail, YouTube and Android but these are all highly popular - and profitable - services and have been since the start.
- tinkerteller 8y ago
  No, they left it to rott. No innovations, no new strategy, no new leadership, no new bold moves. Nothing. If G+ was startup outside Google we would have ripped it off for not even pretending to compete. Social is absolutely the most important space for Google, even more so than cloud. FB is eating up large chunk of their ad money and putting biggest chunk of content out of their reach. For a company out to organize world's information, this is unthinkable. And this is a company with $100B in bank, accumulation of largest talent pool, ability to attract the best. And it's not that FB is perfect and strongest at this point. There is no "cutting losses" in tech when product category is this important. It takes years of struggle, experimentation, patience and competition to win. They gave up within an year after G+ release, left it on "maintenance mode" and now finally kissing good bye. To me, Google has lost its charm as company that makes big bets and goes all-in until they win. Now they are company which does half-assed product and if they don't see traction right away, they cut off the oxygen and then just kill it. There is little or no reflections, learning and applying it to do course corrections. After Larry Page arrived at the scene and flew out to his Caribbean island on extra-extended vacations, the company has failed to produce any big new product category. Eric Schmidt was able to start new product category virtually every year and become undisputed leader in it. That wasn't coincidence or luck but sheer drive to win. For example, in maps they had to invest huge amount of money with multi-year milestones and constant innovations to displace existing players.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
rauhl 8y ago
> This is at the time FB is bleeding heavily, is losing trust and people are willing to try something new. This is, I think, a really key point. It’s debatable to what extent people are willing to try something new (it may be that they’ve soured on social media in general), but it’s certainly true that Facebook has lost a huge amount of trust, and that a company with vision might be able to take advantage of that weakness. I really liked G+; I even left Facebook for awhile in favour of it. But the great masses didn’t follow, and eventually G+ turned into a wasteland. There was a lot of potential there, IMHO, but it was never really exploited and was ultimately squandered. Very sad.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago

After all these time no one at Google's highly paid smartest on Earth visionaries were able to experiment, try something new and continue fight for social. What? They spent a decade on G+, launched it with much fanfare, annnd it just didn't pan out. Sure, they didn't drive it down Google users' throats as aggressively as they could have (via e.g. Search, Chrome or Gmail) but that really wouldn't have helped them - Facebook didn't grow like that either. Social networks need to grow via organic growth, via word of mouth. Anyway they're cutting their losses finally instead of indulging in the sunk cost fallacy, I say good riddance. You also mention Maps, Gmail, YouTube and Android but these are all highly popular - and profitable - services and have been since the start.

tinkerteller 8y ago
No, they left it to rott. No innovations, no new strategy, no new leadership, no new bold moves. Nothing. If G+ was startup outside Google we would have ripped it off for not even pretending to compete. Social is absolutely the most important space for Google, even more so than cloud. FB is eating up large chunk of their ad money and putting biggest chunk of content out of their reach. For a company out to organize world's information, this is unthinkable. And this is a company with $100B in bank, accumulation of largest talent pool, ability to attract the best. And it's not that FB is perfect and strongest at this point. There is no "cutting losses" in tech when product category is this important. It takes years of struggle, experimentation, patience and competition to win. They gave up within an year after G+ release, left it on "maintenance mode" and now finally kissing good bye. To me, Google has lost its charm as company that makes big bets and goes all-in until they win. Now they are company which does half-assed product and if they don't see traction right away, they cut off the oxygen and then just kill it. There is little or no reflections, learning and applying it to do course corrections. After Larry Page arrived at the scene and flew out to his Caribbean island on extra-extended vacations, the company has failed to produce any big new product category. Eric Schmidt was able to start new product category virtually every year and become undisputed leader in it. That wasn't coincidence or luck but sheer drive to win. For example, in maps they had to invest huge amount of money with multi-year milestones and constant innovations to displace existing players.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

rauhl 8y ago

> This is at the time FB is bleeding heavily, is losing trust and people are willing to try something new. This is, I think, a really key point. It’s debatable to what extent people are willing to try something new (it may be that they’ve soured on social media in general), but it’s certainly true that Facebook has lost a huge amount of trust, and that a company with vision might be able to take advantage of that weakness. I really liked G+; I even left Facebook for awhile in favour of it. But the great masses didn’t follow, and eventually G+ turned into a wasteland. There was a lot of potential there, IMHO, but it was never really exploited and was ultimately squandered. Very sad.