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Some businesses, sure. Some of the big tech companies that are doing layoffs though (like Google) are just fine financially, and are losing two decades' worth o

Some businesses, sure. Some of the big tech companies that are doing layoffs though (like Google) are just fine financially, and are losing two decades' worth of employee morale and goodwill for a temporary stock bump that is already dissipating. Memegen is a firestorm, and everyone is now talking about the importance of being on safe projects and staying away from experimental/unproven ones. That's going to hurt Google's prospects of launching anything else revolutionary even further.

britzkopf 4y ago
What is memegen?
- aleksiy123 4y ago
  A google internal meme generating+sharing page.
- ajaimk 4y ago
  A Google Monopoly that needs to be broken up and opened to the public (mainly, xooglers).
  - Wonnk13 4y ago
    lol right. I want to rollover my Mcmillen score just like a 401k
    - CSMastermind 4y ago
      > Mcmillen score I'm unfamiliar with this term and a quick search didn't produce any meaningful results. What is it?
      - kccqzy 4y ago
        The meme version of h-index. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index
      - CydeWeys 4y ago
        Think reddit karma, but for making memes.
- pietrofmaggi 4y ago
  A meme sharing internal website. At the moment it's also the most reliable source of information for what happens across Google's PAs (Product Areas).
andsoitis 4y ago
> (like Google) are just fine financially Why do you think you know what is in Google's best long-term interest? Do you think you could run the company?
vlovich123 4y ago
Google hasn’t really demonstrated a good track record of revolutionary launches. Doing so requires risk and long term investment and vision. Bigger companies have more to lose with risk and thus take much “safer” risks because CEO and middle management are incentivized to do that - risky bets might cause you to be on the losing side of a bet and end up regressing from where you are now. Risky bets are also how you can attain 1000x results but management is incentivized and condition for loss avoidance. That’s why in-house incubators always fail to produce billion dollar businesses - the incentive structure is very wrong. For everything else that Ruth has delivered to Google in terms of getting it into a supremely healthy financial position, I think the concerns about her killing “Google” have been largely borne out (whether or not that’s her or just her delivering what was asked doesn’t really matter - it’s probably both). Facebook is about the only company attempting to do this at the size of the big tech companies with Oculus. I think because it’s viewed as an existential threat that they otherwise don’t have their own platform so temporary headwinds / market punishing them for investing so heavily is less a concern for the board and Mark. Ford had to outsource this with Cruise and it’s a delicate balance even then. Apple is interesting to watch because they make very few moves in public that it’s hard to see what’s going on even from the inside in terms of innovation. Toyota is an example of taking a bad “market risk” investing into hydrogen although I think that’s an example of either saving face until they fix their EV story, truly making a misstep, or the story being misreported (eg hydrogen for fleet vehicles and trucks but EV for individuals).
- CydeWeys 4y ago
  > Google hasn’t really demonstrated a good track record of revolutionary launches. I disagree. Search was the original product, and since then, Google has launched the following other products/technologies that I would also describe as revolutionary: Gmail, Maps, Android, Chrome, Ads/AdSense, YouTube (depending on who you give credit to), MapReduce, Kubernetes, TPUs, TensorFlow, and I'm sure I'm missing some. The trajectory of these revolutionary launches over time does seem to be decelerating though even as the company gets larger. And with these layoffs it'll likely get even worse, not better.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago

britzkopf 4y ago

What is memegen?

aleksiy123 4y ago
A google internal meme generating+sharing page.
ajaimk 4y ago
A Google Monopoly that needs to be broken up and opened to the public (mainly, xooglers).
- Wonnk13 4y ago
  lol right. I want to rollover my Mcmillen score just like a 401k
  - CSMastermind 4y ago
    > Mcmillen score I'm unfamiliar with this term and a quick search didn't produce any meaningful results. What is it?
    - kccqzy 4y ago
      The meme version of h-index. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index
    - CydeWeys 4y ago
      Think reddit karma, but for making memes.
pietrofmaggi 4y ago
A meme sharing internal website. At the moment it's also the most reliable source of information for what happens across Google's PAs (Product Areas).

andsoitis 4y ago

> (like Google) are just fine financially Why do you think you know what is in Google's best long-term interest? Do you think you could run the company?

vlovich123 4y ago

Google hasn’t really demonstrated a good track record of revolutionary launches. Doing so requires risk and long term investment and vision. Bigger companies have more to lose with risk and thus take much “safer” risks because CEO and middle management are incentivized to do that - risky bets might cause you to be on the losing side of a bet and end up regressing from where you are now. Risky bets are also how you can attain 1000x results but management is incentivized and condition for loss avoidance. That’s why in-house incubators always fail to produce billion dollar businesses - the incentive structure is very wrong. For everything else that Ruth has delivered to Google in terms of getting it into a supremely healthy financial position, I think the concerns about her killing “Google” have been largely borne out (whether or not that’s her or just her delivering what was asked doesn’t really matter - it’s probably both). Facebook is about the only company attempting to do this at the size of the big tech companies with Oculus. I think because it’s viewed as an existential threat that they otherwise don’t have their own platform so temporary headwinds / market punishing them for investing so heavily is less a concern for the board and Mark. Ford had to outsource this with Cruise and it’s a delicate balance even then. Apple is interesting to watch because they make very few moves in public that it’s hard to see what’s going on even from the inside in terms of innovation. Toyota is an example of taking a bad “market risk” investing into hydrogen although I think that’s an example of either saving face until they fix their EV story, truly making a misstep, or the story being misreported (eg hydrogen for fleet vehicles and trucks but EV for individuals).

CydeWeys 4y ago
> Google hasn’t really demonstrated a good track record of revolutionary launches. I disagree. Search was the original product, and since then, Google has launched the following other products/technologies that I would also describe as revolutionary: Gmail, Maps, Android, Chrome, Ads/AdSense, YouTube (depending on who you give credit to), MapReduce, Kubernetes, TPUs, TensorFlow, and I'm sure I'm missing some. The trajectory of these revolutionary launches over time does seem to be decelerating though even as the company gets larger. And with these layoffs it'll likely get even worse, not better.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago