4 ms·

I think some of this is par for the course for a geek-run successful technology company. Back in the late 80's and early 90's when programmers still controlled

I think some of this is par for the course for a geek-run successful technology company. Back in the late 80's and early 90's when programmers still controlled Autodesk it was involved in projects like Xanadu, AMIX and even created the Cyberspace Developers Kit. All of these were very cool projects but far from the core revenue generating product AutoCAD. If Google follows the trajectory of other major tech companies there will one day be a down quarter, Wall Street will scream bloody murder and management will release a memo about "refocusing the company on it core competencies." And on that day you really want to be working on AdWords where the money is and not on the cool projects.

tomjen3 16y ago
Did that happen when John Walker was still running it? Because I could see Larry and Sergey saying screw you to Wall Street, and just going on doing what they have currently been doing. Outing successful founders is extremely risky and the investors know this (imagine what would happen to Apples stock price if Steve Jobs was fired tomorrow).
- smithbits 16y ago
  I believe Xanadu and AMIX were canceled when Carol Bartz took over as CEO in 1992. That may well have been the right business decision to make, but it wasn't a programmer decision. And yes, it seems that Apple is a carefully crafted corporate machine that needs a design-focused highly-opinionated control-oriented person at the top. It will be interesting to someday watch Apple transition to being a post-Jobs company. (full disclosure, I worked at both NeXT and Autodesk)
plinkplonk 16y ago
"And on that day you really want to be working on AdWords where the money is and not on the cool projects." Alternatively, on that day, you can find another cool job at another geek-run successful technology company(if you are any kind of hacker, which you probably are if you are working on these cool projects). Once this happens, you probably don't want to keep working at Google and see a great company decline to yet another middle manager driven MegaCorp. (There is some debate on whether this process is underway there already).

tomjen3 16y ago

Did that happen when John Walker was still running it? Because I could see Larry and Sergey saying screw you to Wall Street, and just going on doing what they have currently been doing. Outing successful founders is extremely risky and the investors know this (imagine what would happen to Apples stock price if Steve Jobs was fired tomorrow).

smithbits 16y ago
I believe Xanadu and AMIX were canceled when Carol Bartz took over as CEO in 1992. That may well have been the right business decision to make, but it wasn't a programmer decision. And yes, it seems that Apple is a carefully crafted corporate machine that needs a design-focused highly-opinionated control-oriented person at the top. It will be interesting to someday watch Apple transition to being a post-Jobs company. (full disclosure, I worked at both NeXT and Autodesk)

plinkplonk 16y ago

"And on that day you really want to be working on AdWords where the money is and not on the cool projects." Alternatively, on that day, you can find another cool job at another geek-run successful technology company(if you are any kind of hacker, which you probably are if you are working on these cool projects). Once this happens, you probably don't want to keep working at Google and see a great company decline to yet another middle manager driven MegaCorp. (There is some debate on whether this process is underway there already).