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Of course there is a justification for the disparity. Google has a higher standard for the talent of it's engineers than MS and definitely over the rest of the

Of course there is a justification for the disparity. Google has a higher standard for the talent of it's engineers than MS and definitely over the rest of the industry. This gives Google a large competitive advantage as they can respond better to threats and because they can deny some top talent to competitors. You can make a good argument that Google isn't making good use of this talent, which is a result of management problems with Google we all know about. And as it is, Google is as profitable as it ever was, so there is no urgency in firing people, either. The obvious good long term play is to fix the organizational issues to be able to make better use of existing talent. Chris Hohn knows this, of course. He just wants Google to buy back more stocks so he can sell his Google position. His interest isn't the long term well-being of the company, his interest is a predictable short term peak in valuation. Chaining short term profits is how these funds get outsized returns and it's how they can make any argument to their investors that they are at all better than a leveraged long position in the general market.

GalenErso 4y ago
I don't know. The quality and reliability of Google's products have been on a steady decline for years. One of the largest HN threads of all time is about the decline of Google's search product. Stadia failed because of mismanagement. Google doesn't appear to innovate a lot these days.
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  This is mostly due to incentive and mismanagement issues at the Senior level at Google, instead of engineering deficiencies in the median Googler. Google's search is getting worse for users because it's getting better at making profit, and Stadia is failing because of mismanagement as you say, not engineering quality which was by all accounts excellent.
credit_guy 4y ago
> His interest isn't the long term well-being of the company, his interest is a predictable short term peak in valuation. Chaining short term profits is how these funds get outsized returns That's a plausible theory. Except the letter I linked to starts like this: TCI has been a significant shareholder of Alphabet since 2017. We currently own shares valued at more than $6 billion, reflecting our strong conviction in Alphabet's future. Five years does not sound that short-term to me.
- polygamous_bat 4y ago
  For most of the five year period, Alphabet has been giving them magnificent returns, peaking at 200% gross. Only now it has been hit with the economic downturn, so it makes sense that all of a sudden they are trying to sell and get out.
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  I'm sure that's the way they want to spin it. However, TCI is down around 20%, and it's pretty clear that they intend to juice Google in the short term to make good on their recent losses. I'm sure they have had a significant share in Google, but this share is a much bigger proportion in recent times of their portfolio. By any common wisdom they should be diversifying anyways.
ifyoubuildit 4y ago
> Google has a higher standard for the talent of it's engineers than MS and definitely over the rest of the industry I think this is a completely uncontroversial statement, but I like poking at uncontroversial statements like this. How would you go about validating it? Is something like acceptance ratio sufficient? I would think not for a few reasons: you could reject 9 out of 10 applicants automatically and voila, low acceptance ratio. Plus, this data probably isn't even available. So this is a statement that few people would bat an eye at, but is it provable? Or is it just a thing that we believe because we believe it.

GalenErso 4y ago

I don't know. The quality and reliability of Google's products have been on a steady decline for years. One of the largest HN threads of all time is about the decline of Google's search product. Stadia failed because of mismanagement. Google doesn't appear to innovate a lot these days.

sudosysgen 4y ago
This is mostly due to incentive and mismanagement issues at the Senior level at Google, instead of engineering deficiencies in the median Googler. Google's search is getting worse for users because it's getting better at making profit, and Stadia is failing because of mismanagement as you say, not engineering quality which was by all accounts excellent.

credit_guy 4y ago

> His interest isn't the long term well-being of the company, his interest is a predictable short term peak in valuation. Chaining short term profits is how these funds get outsized returns That's a plausible theory. Except the letter I linked to starts like this: TCI has been a significant shareholder of Alphabet since 2017. We currently own shares valued at more than $6 billion, reflecting our strong conviction in Alphabet's future. Five years does not sound that short-term to me.

polygamous_bat 4y ago
For most of the five year period, Alphabet has been giving them magnificent returns, peaking at 200% gross. Only now it has been hit with the economic downturn, so it makes sense that all of a sudden they are trying to sell and get out.
sudosysgen 4y ago
I'm sure that's the way they want to spin it. However, TCI is down around 20%, and it's pretty clear that they intend to juice Google in the short term to make good on their recent losses. I'm sure they have had a significant share in Google, but this share is a much bigger proportion in recent times of their portfolio. By any common wisdom they should be diversifying anyways.

ifyoubuildit 4y ago

> Google has a higher standard for the talent of it's engineers than MS and definitely over the rest of the industry I think this is a completely uncontroversial statement, but I like poking at uncontroversial statements like this. How would you go about validating it? Is something like acceptance ratio sufficient? I would think not for a few reasons: you could reject 9 out of 10 applicants automatically and voila, low acceptance ratio. Plus, this data probably isn't even available. So this is a statement that few people would bat an eye at, but is it provable? Or is it just a thing that we believe because we believe it.