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Many years ago, I interned at Google and a very wise mentor of mine explained Google to me in a way that has stuck with me. "Google discovered a hose that mone

• ashtonkem 5y ago
  Also, Google's internal politics are kind of broken. It's my understanding that a lot of the product launches and cancellations are a consequence of an internal culture that rewards launching new products, but not maintaining or improving them.
  • refulgentis 5y ago
    Neither OP or GP have it right - Fuchsia isn't a "3rd OS", it's a kernel, like Linux, except MIT. Maintenance is most certainly rewarded, at least in the 5 years I've been at Google
    • mike_d 5y ago
      Eh. If you've been at Google for 5 years then you should recognize Fuchsia as another one of the "retention projects" where you get paid to twiddle away at something cool in the corner and your only real deliverable is not going to work for Facebook or Apple. Sometimes they stumble upon something another PA needs, but often it just ends up as a patent or research paper.
      • refulgentis 5y ago
        I can forthrightly say you're way, way, off the mark here. Another common anecdote in any Fuchsia article, one I myself believed at times, but not the case here. Edit: one of the many, many signs HN has deteriorated to a poor clone of subreddit combos is getting downvoted for knowing that this isn't a do-nothing project, which should be obvious to anyone reading: the whole point of the article is _it is launching on consumer hardware_. Sad stuff.
        • mike_d 5y ago
          "Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
          • new_realist 5y ago
            And if HN did turn into Reddit, how would we know, given that we're gagged?
          • ryandvm 5y ago
            I find these playground rule recitations to be a rather lily-livered way of stifling discussion. This is a forum and we're here to discuss things. Lest you forget, the _users_ and their opinions are the most valuable part of Hacker News, so how about we dispense with the self-appointed hall monitoring? I really don't give a shit if there's a commandment about not comparing HN to Reddit. If the shoe fits...
        • Bud 5y ago
          I'm interested: can you name even one more of the supposed "many, many signs"? The only one you elucidated doesn't really click; nor can I discern that HN is, by any stretch, a "poor clone" of anything about Reddit. HN has, in fact, many virtues that Reddit can't really touch, and it's basically just as old as Reddit, not that Reddit really invented anything that hadn't already existed for decades.
          • refulgentis 5y ago
            I got banned from posting for _4 hours_ because I got downvoted 5 points in a half hour for these comments. Suffice it to say I tried writing more substantive but the policy had its obvious effect, the off-topic echo chamber was preserved. Look no further than you're being _upvoted_ for quintupling down on inanity completely divorced from the article that's we're supposed to be discussing, even with schoolyard debate nonsense like "can you name even one thing backing up your thesis statement?" (back in the day, or still with more traditional HN posts, you'd get something more like: 'I find that surprising, what makes you feel that way?'. Dang calls this "coming with curiosity" or something like that) Meanwhile in the sibling thread, we have a guy with a year old account neener-neering me for daring to mention things are bad because it's a noob fallacy, and people who have actually been here a while getting flagged/dead through the floor for pointing out this _isn't actually some steadfast rule_, its a classic HN "rule". Meanwhile, I've been here for 12+ years and its never been close to being as bad as it is right now. This site, and you, are getting what always happens to these sites: too large of an audience to preserve quality of discussion over group dynamics. You shall inherit the board, but, no one will be the wiser for you being here - it's all half-baked assertions, schoolyard bully absolutist nonsense that you know isn't argumentation, you'd never talk like that to someone in real life. Then add the thesis here being that people _in the actual company_ aren't seeing the truth, their coworkers are engaged on makework PhD bullshit because otherwise they'd jump to Apple (never mind that the #1, #2, and #3 pieces of career advice in the valley is to leave so you get promoted)
      • xvector 5y ago
        Why would Google pay employees to not go to Apple?
        • echelon 5y ago
          The only competition for the giants are the other giants. Who can divert from Google's massive ad income funnel? Apple. Facebook. (Also maybe several foreign governments' antitrust cases.) An engineer on your payroll is an engineer not on the competition's payroll.
        • astrange 5y ago
          Because Google has infinite money, the execs just hire people so they can admire the zoo of smart people they've built. Why do they need Vint Cerf, Guido, and Rob Pike? Why are they on the MIDI board? Because there's no real reason not to.
          • 1024core 5y ago
            Guido hasn't been at Google since 2013
          • therealrootuser 5y ago
            I don't have an opinion either way on your position here, other than a fact check. Guido van Rossum (creator of Python) is a Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft. Before that, he worked at Dropbox.
            • mike_d 5y ago
              Before that, he was at Google. Failing to retain an employee doesn't invalidate that Google would rather they didn't leave. I get the quarterly check-ins from the "alumni recruiting" team, and can assume Guido does too.
      • rejectedandsad 5y ago
        Facebook or Apple? Not Amazon or Microsoft?
    • gjsman-1000 5y ago
      Actually, it is a 3rd OS named Fuchsia, which uses a custom kernel called Zircon which is MIT. "Zircon is the core platform that powers Fuchsia. Zircon is composed of a kernel (source in /zircon/kernel) as well as a small set of userspace services, drivers, and libraries (source in /zircon/system/) necessary for the system to boot, talk to hardware, load userspace processes and run them, etc. Fuchsia builds a much larger OS on top of this foundation." - Fuchsia Docs, https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/concepts/kernel https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/concepts/kernel
  • CobrastanJorji 5y ago
    I suspect that this is a consequence of the above problem. Something that's pretty successful and growing at a pretty good clip is not a giant spigot of money, and therefore it's effectively useless to Google. Maintaining it requires programmers that could be better put to searching for the next spigot.
  • BurningFrog 5y ago
    This is also typical of mismanaged governments: Always building new infrastructure, and not maintaining the existing one.
  • ortusdux 5y ago
    As I understand it, higher level promotions require a portfolio be compiled and submitted to an anonymous review board. A successful product launch is one of the most valuable additions to these packets. This has two logistical consequences: 1 - it's more valuable to launch a new product that it is to successfully maintain/grow a current one. 2 - the person running these new projects tends to get promoted away, leaving it rudderless. Google could change all this overnight by restructuring what these review boards prioritize.
    • est31 5y ago
      If a solution is that simple, why hasn't it been done? Also, the head of Android has become the CEO, and Android is still not rudderless.
      • s3r3nity 5y ago
        Because the system works? Why fix what isn't broken?
        • jolux 5y ago
          It works for some things but they've kind of painted themselves into a corner with cloud services, many companies do not trust that GCP will not just disappear without a trace someday.
      • ashtonkem 5y ago
        Identifying a good change and actually implementing it in a massive organization are two wildly different things.
  • opheliate 5y ago
    People always say this on HN, and while it’s definitely a viable explanation for why Google so often cans projects that are well-loved, I’m finding it harder to believe the more I think about it. If all of us on the outside are so aware of this fact about Google’s culture, surely someone with sway has heard about it, and taken steps to fix it. I’m sure Google are well aware of the perception that they’re always getting rid of products, and would like to fix that. So if the explanation was just that the culture doesn’t reward maintaining existing projects, I’m sure we would have heard something about a corporate incentive to maintain stuff.
    • phkahler 5y ago
      I hate the word, but if there's one thing google has it's analytics - data. They can tell if something is growing or dying. I'm guessing they could even tell youtube was growing before they bought it. But seeing an upward trend seems easier than seeing a flat line and deciding it can't be turned into an upward trend.
    • CarelessExpert 5y ago
      > So if the explanation was just that the culture doesn’t reward maintaining existing projects, I’m sure we would have heard something about a corporate incentive to maintain stuff. So, two things: 1) Changing culture is really hard, especially at a company the size of Google, and 2) Even if they could change the culture, it's possible they simply don't care or they believe the benefits outweigh the cost.
    • jsnell 5y ago
      How about this explanation instead: Google doesn't actually have a habit of canceling projects that are well-loved? If you don't believe it, try selecting 10 of their supposedly killed products at random. Had you honestly heard of them ever before? Do they look like something that would have had a significant user base? Hell, do they even look like they were actual products?
  • danans 5y ago
    > product launches and cancellations are a consequence of an internal culture that rewards launching new products, but not maintaining or improving them This is very stale information at this point. Product launches are now pretty heavily gated, and promotion criteria are far less based on launches than on overall impact, including but not limited to improving/maintaining products. (Googler but interpretation is my own)
    • mrwh 5y ago
      I think that depends where you are. There's a lot of lip-service being paid, but from what I've seen, it's mostly translated to talking about _landings_ rather than _launchings_, which isn't much of a change. (Also a Googler.)
      • danans 5y ago
        I think landings allows for a much broader scope of accomplishments. For example, if refactor an entire system for demonstrably better maintainability and efficiency, that's a landing, but not a launch.
  • mlazos 5y ago
    People say this all the time about every company. For many this is true, when seen from the narrow perspective of an individual. However for the only metric that people care about (stock price and profit) Google’s system is incredibly successful. Higher ups will not dictate changes like this if the company is successful. Culture change at the macro level only happens when the company is spiraling at the macro level.
• KorematsuFred 5y ago
  > Google develop 3+ different OS's? It wont. From what I understand this new OS will replace others over time. Also it is way better than existing options.
  • willtim 5y ago
    Better than all existing options? I'm skeptical that a kernel written in C++ is likely to be better than e.g. a formally verified microkernel such as seL4. If they ever rewrite it in Rust, then it might be more interesting.
    • StreamBright 5y ago
      Parts of it is already in Rust and formal verification could be done for this project as well. At that stage would you be ok with it?
      • willtim 5y ago
        If it improves the security of the device and means that Google will keep updating it, then that will be good. However, personally I have given up buying Google-branded devices. They only gave me security updates for my Pixel C for three years (2016-2019).
  • paxys 5y ago
    That's a wild leap with zero evidence. Fuchsia runs on one unimportant production device and has basically zero usage. Saying it will replace all of Android and ChromeOS is...optimistic to say the least.
    • tristanj 5y ago
      Project ‘Fuchsia’: Google Is Quietly Working on a Successor to Android https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-19/google-team-is-said-to-plot-android-successor-draw-skepticism https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-19/google-te... > For more than two years, a small and stealthy group of engineers within Google has been working on software that they hope will eventually replace Android. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19702968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19702968 > "And while Android is reaching EOL in the next 4-5 years, most of this work will be carried on in Fuchsia OS, which is set to eventually replace Android"
• dougmwne 5y ago
  This seems like a pretty flawed strategy to me. Lots of improbable products turned into multi-billion dollar companies. Tiny videos set to music, watching other people play video games, liking pictures of food, and so on. It seems to me that it's less about the product and more about the execution. There are lots of Google products that could have taken off if they had been iterated instead of abandoned. Take Apple as one example. They develop a product vision, then spend several versions refining the thing till it goes from a curiosity to a must have. Or look at Facebook with Oculus, they had a vision and released headset after headset, till they found a feature set that had the user engagement metrics they were looking for. They didn't just give up once the Gear VR proved to be a dead-end, which is exactly what Google did with their VR efforts and then cleanly missed the boat Oculus is on now with the Quest.
• dragonwriter 5y ago
  > All that we do now is find ways to make that hose go faster, and desperately search for another hose. There’s one other thing Google does a lot of: try to foresee and actively forestall how someone else might cut-off or divert the flow to the existing hose. While both Chrome and Android evolved in directions that explored potential new hoses, they were clearly both initially directed at protecting the existing hose from being choked off or diverted by monopolies on the client side; Android was purchased and engineered to prevent Apple gaining the kind of dominance in mobile to do that, Chrome and Chrome OS against the desktop Windows monopoly and IE. Google+ was deployed against Facebook and abandoned once it was clear that Facebook’s position, while making it something of a competitor for ad dollars, wasn’t, even without a competitive Google alternative, an existential threat to Google’s money hose.
  • lern_too_spel 5y ago
    This is the big one that people forget. Android itself isn't there to force tracking and marketing on users. It's there to prevent somebody else from controlling mobile devices and being a gatekeeper between Google's services and users. As long as nobody else can prevent Google from reaching users, Google doesn't care that people can run Android without Google services. In practice, poor development practices and incompetent product management has left some bits hard to change. The search provider used to be hardcoded with no way for the user to override it. That only changed when some early Android phones began shipping with Bing as the default. To this day, it is impossible to allow any non-system app store to update apps in the background. This hasn't changed only because Amazon, Samsung, and many other OEMs failed to get developer traction with their own app stores. Now that there are antitrust rumblings, Google has hinted they will finally fix this, but once again, this isn't a threat to the core Android strategy of removing gatekeepers.
    • jolux 5y ago
      > Android itself isn't there to force tracking and marketing on users. It's there to prevent somebody else from controlling mobile devices and being a gatekeeper between Google's services and users. It can be, and is, both.
• echelon 5y ago
  This would be another benefit of antitrust scrutiny for the tech giants. They're not innovating at this point. They're twiddling thumbs. If we broke up Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon, then they'd be forced to fight for survival. Struggle births innovation.
• zozbot234 5y ago
  How exactly does a random piece of IoT junk that looks like it could come from any single one of countless fly-by-night manufacturers in Shenzen (namely the "Nest Hub" that's now running some version of Fuchsia, per the OP) turn into a money-making firehose for Google? Just curious, because I'm having trouble seeing how this could make sense.
  • Jyaif 5y ago
    Gee, how could the entry point to all the devices around you ever become a money making firehose?
  • mabbo 5y ago
    The problem is that many good ideas only look good in hindsight. In 15 years, we'll either say "Fuchsia was a brilliant move, I'm so glad my home runs on that OS" or we'll say "Remember Fuchsia? lol". Here's what I mean. Acquisitions by Google in 2005: Reqwireless (mobile ads, merged with google analytics); Dodgeball (social networking, later Google Latitude); Akwan (Search tech); Skia (graphics library); Phatbits (Google Desktop); allPAY (???); bruNET (???); Android (cheap OS for mobile devices). In 2005, which of these were going to change the world?
  • xnx 5y ago
    Advertising/influence depends on two things: 1) Knowing what you're thinking (e.g. the search request you speak to your Nest Hub) 2) Presenting messages to you (e.g. displaying search results/suggestions/ads on the Nest Hub screen in your home)
• ranguna 5y ago
  Isn't that most private companies ? Searching for sources of income ?
  • mandelken 5y ago
    No, most private companies are not monopolies (although many would not mind I guess). It seems online advertising has a strong network effect[1], where website owners use Google ads because that's where most advertisers are and advertisers use Google ads because it has most reach (and therefore tracking). This naturally creates a monopoly, just like with Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, AirBnB, Uber etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect