Another former employee. I'll add that once search engine for apps clearly wouldn't work there was an attempt to pivot to something like Google cards but direct

Another former employee. I'll add that once search engine for apps clearly wouldn't work there was an attempt to pivot to something like Google cards but directly linked to the app (so yelp reviews for restaurants instead of Google reviews). This wasn't a bad idea but they raised the money for a large scale product (1000s of apps) and so invested in scale before proving the market fit. Combine that with Alibaba money splitting focus again and there never was a useful product launched. (Google employee now: views are my own)