6 ms·

I worked for Google at the time of the Fortnite fiasco and challenged the company on why we didn’t use our “beyond status quo” spirit to innovate the business m

I worked for Google at the time of the Fortnite fiasco and challenged the company on why we didn’t use our “beyond status quo” spirit to innovate the business model. It got raised to the top of our all hands dory and the Play store director had to come on stage to address the question. Scripted response. Scheduled a follow up 1:1 through his admin. Sat in a room for 30 minutes while he fed me bullshit. Walked away convinced Google culture is dead. No longer work at Google

quambene 5y ago
Thanks for trying. Difficult to change a business model if it's working quite well (financially). Long-term thinking and short-term bonus payments don't align. Kudos for your decision to leave.
- enos_feedler 5y ago
  Yes, sadly. Google is operating on a “what can we get away with?” attitude vs a “what is possible?” one. No single 3P has power to change the system.
  - Ruphin 5y ago
    Just curious, what does 3P stand for?
    - enos_feedler 5y ago
      3rd party developer.
      - tidenly 5y ago
        Means something very different in some asian languages haha
ocdtrekkie 5y ago
Ultimately, you ran into reality: That no matter what story these companies sell you on their mission, a 30% profit margin is a 30% profit margin, and not a single person is going to stand in the way of that much profit. The honest truth is Google culture never existed, they just had most people fooled for a long time.
- Cederfjard 5y ago
  Elsewhere in this thread, someone has suggested that Android makes up a fairly small percentage of Google’s net income. Does that have any bearing on this analysis?
  - enos_feedler 5y ago
    This is a good point. A project within Google that doesn’t move the needle next to it’s search advertising business should not be _driven_ by profit margin. However there are a few reasons why I think this happened within Google Play: 1. Lots of pressure for google products and services to become standalone businesses 2. Too much imbalance of power between business teams and engineering teams within Google Play. The business teams just saw it as copycat App Store and the engineers and product leads didn’t have the influence to overturn this. In some ways this is against what the broader Google culture was thought to have. (Eng/prod > bd). 3. Androids existence as a defense and not as an opportunity to create the future. Android has always been this and it’s engrained culturally.
  - ocdtrekkie 5y ago
    There are ways to lie with statistics, but the Play Store is a huge cash cow. I play a mobile game where thousands of players at least have spent more than a car in in-app purchase transactions. Someone told me if you're spending less than $1,000 they consider you free to play. One of the key items for high level play you can only unlock after spending $12,000 on an account. Imagine if Ford could make 30% profit on selling cars, and didn't even have to manufacture the car. Fortnite alone is worth hundreds of millions to Google. There's a reason they're willing to compromise any supposed principles they had over it. Then there are additional effects, like how their control over the Play Store impacts their advertising opportunities on Android.
amitmathew 5y ago
I figured there must be sensible people within Google trying to fight the good fight. On the surface, it makes business sense to follow the status quo. But I wonder if that's true for the long term. Wouldn't the Android platform be worth a lot more if they gave developers freedom to explore different strategies and business models? What if we could get proper demos? What if we could properly interact with our customers and do things like easily issue refunds? I don't know, maybe I'm way off, but I always thought that Play Store revenue should be a lot higher than it is now if Google exhibited some leadership.
- scarface74 5y ago
  Google doesn’t care about Android’s experience or the Play Store. It came out in the Oracle lawsuit that Android had only made Google around $25 billion in profit during its existence. Android was already the dominant platform around then. Apple makes more from Google in mobile by Google paying it to be the default search engine than Google makes from Android. Android is only a defensive play for Google not a profit center
  - MajorBee 5y ago
    > only $25 billion in profit Surely there must be a typo in one of these words? I can’t imagine 25 humongous ones being loose change for any business.
    - morelisp 5y ago
      It's a single-digit percentage of what ads make, without much room for growth. I doubt it's a single-digit percentage of technical effort.
    - scarface74 5y ago
      For a company the size of Google making $22 billion on a product from 2010 to 2016 is a nothingburger. https://www.engadget.com/2016-01-21-android-22-billion-in-profit-oracle.html https://www.engadget.com/2016-01-21-android-22-billion-in-pr... This is their total net income between 2010 and 2016. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/net-income https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/net-... They pay Apple a reported $18 billion a year to be the default search engine on Apple devices.
TomSwirly 5y ago
Funny, I had much the same experience over ten years ago! Google had an internal product called GoogleBase that was a huge "database" of "all products" based on Bigtable. Unfortunately, the whole thing had been misrepresented by the original managers, who moved to another project, and the dozens of engineers on the project were all struggling. I asked Larry Page about this at a meeting, and he said, "We'll get back to you" and someone did and I responded, but there was no feedback, and eventually, a hundred person years later, it was all cancelled. It was stressful for me and unproductive.
Cederfjard 5y ago
If someone, like I was, is curious what a ”dory” is in this context, I believe this is it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Moderator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Moderator
- enos_feedler 5y ago
  Sorry about using that terminology!
sangnoir 5y ago
> Sat in a room for 30 minutes while he fed me bullshit. Walked away convinced Google culture is dead. I bet you a dollar his bonus is directly, or indirectly tied to Play store revenue. Companies destroy themselves from the inside due to misaligned personal vs. organizational incentives.

quambene 5y ago

Thanks for trying. Difficult to change a business model if it's working quite well (financially). Long-term thinking and short-term bonus payments don't align. Kudos for your decision to leave.

enos_feedler 5y ago
Yes, sadly. Google is operating on a “what can we get away with?” attitude vs a “what is possible?” one. No single 3P has power to change the system.
- Ruphin 5y ago
  Just curious, what does 3P stand for?
  - enos_feedler 5y ago
    3rd party developer.
    - tidenly 5y ago
      Means something very different in some asian languages haha

ocdtrekkie 5y ago

Ultimately, you ran into reality: That no matter what story these companies sell you on their mission, a 30% profit margin is a 30% profit margin, and not a single person is going to stand in the way of that much profit. The honest truth is Google culture never existed, they just had most people fooled for a long time.

Cederfjard 5y ago
Elsewhere in this thread, someone has suggested that Android makes up a fairly small percentage of Google’s net income. Does that have any bearing on this analysis?
- enos_feedler 5y ago
  This is a good point. A project within Google that doesn’t move the needle next to it’s search advertising business should not be _driven_ by profit margin. However there are a few reasons why I think this happened within Google Play: 1. Lots of pressure for google products and services to become standalone businesses 2. Too much imbalance of power between business teams and engineering teams within Google Play. The business teams just saw it as copycat App Store and the engineers and product leads didn’t have the influence to overturn this. In some ways this is against what the broader Google culture was thought to have. (Eng/prod > bd). 3. Androids existence as a defense and not as an opportunity to create the future. Android has always been this and it’s engrained culturally.
- ocdtrekkie 5y ago
  There are ways to lie with statistics, but the Play Store is a huge cash cow. I play a mobile game where thousands of players at least have spent more than a car in in-app purchase transactions. Someone told me if you're spending less than $1,000 they consider you free to play. One of the key items for high level play you can only unlock after spending $12,000 on an account. Imagine if Ford could make 30% profit on selling cars, and didn't even have to manufacture the car. Fortnite alone is worth hundreds of millions to Google. There's a reason they're willing to compromise any supposed principles they had over it. Then there are additional effects, like how their control over the Play Store impacts their advertising opportunities on Android.

amitmathew 5y ago

I figured there must be sensible people within Google trying to fight the good fight. On the surface, it makes business sense to follow the status quo. But I wonder if that's true for the long term. Wouldn't the Android platform be worth a lot more if they gave developers freedom to explore different strategies and business models? What if we could get proper demos? What if we could properly interact with our customers and do things like easily issue refunds? I don't know, maybe I'm way off, but I always thought that Play Store revenue should be a lot higher than it is now if Google exhibited some leadership.

scarface74 5y ago
Google doesn’t care about Android’s experience or the Play Store. It came out in the Oracle lawsuit that Android had only made Google around $25 billion in profit during its existence. Android was already the dominant platform around then. Apple makes more from Google in mobile by Google paying it to be the default search engine than Google makes from Android. Android is only a defensive play for Google not a profit center
- MajorBee 5y ago
  > only $25 billion in profit Surely there must be a typo in one of these words? I can’t imagine 25 humongous ones being loose change for any business.
  - morelisp 5y ago
    It's a single-digit percentage of what ads make, without much room for growth. I doubt it's a single-digit percentage of technical effort.
  - scarface74 5y ago
    For a company the size of Google making $22 billion on a product from 2010 to 2016 is a nothingburger. https://www.engadget.com/2016-01-21-android-22-billion-in-profit-oracle.html https://www.engadget.com/2016-01-21-android-22-billion-in-pr... This is their total net income between 2010 and 2016. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/net-income https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/net-... They pay Apple a reported $18 billion a year to be the default search engine on Apple devices.

TomSwirly 5y ago

Funny, I had much the same experience over ten years ago! Google had an internal product called GoogleBase that was a huge "database" of "all products" based on Bigtable. Unfortunately, the whole thing had been misrepresented by the original managers, who moved to another project, and the dozens of engineers on the project were all struggling. I asked Larry Page about this at a meeting, and he said, "We'll get back to you" and someone did and I responded, but there was no feedback, and eventually, a hundred person years later, it was all cancelled. It was stressful for me and unproductive.

Cederfjard 5y ago

If someone, like I was, is curious what a ”dory” is in this context, I believe this is it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Moderator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Moderator

enos_feedler 5y ago
Sorry about using that terminology!

sangnoir 5y ago

> Sat in a room for 30 minutes while he fed me bullshit. Walked away convinced Google culture is dead. I bet you a dollar his bonus is directly, or indirectly tied to Play store revenue. Companies destroy themselves from the inside due to misaligned personal vs. organizational incentives.