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I'd love for this to be true. I bought into the Google ecosystem in a huge way, but it seems like they have been more focused on the data collection, and advert

I'd love for this to be true. I bought into the Google ecosystem in a huge way, but it seems like they have been more focused on the data collection, and advertising end of things, rather than the innovation, and productivity enablement one. Their ecosystem has consitently been a let down in many regards, and they have lost a lot of forward momentum. I hope they can super charge this stuff, but I feel their corporate structure/environment is their biggest hurdle at this point. They have capable people, and brilliant minds, but the structure of the organization, and them being beholden to their market/shareholders gives them little room to innovate in these areas. Hopefully the prove me wrong.

layer8 4y ago
Having all humans as the target audience means that it will always be more profitable to make users the product instead of making them the customer. This in turn means that incentives are not geared towards being in the interest of the user.
btown 4y ago
One thing's for sure - it's much easier to quantitatively define an OKR for growing advertising mindshare (especially when you operate the exchanges that measure that mindshare!), than it is to, say, define an OKR for how a project loosely contributes to Google leading the mindshare in the movement towards generative AI outputs as they redefine practically every job in the world. And I'm certain that however much Google historically stressed that OKRs aren't tied to performance reviews, there's a lot of fear that deviating from OKRs could trigger one being on the top of the list for the next round of layoffs. So there are definitely headwinds that could stifle experimentation and innovation in such a brave new world. For Google's sake I hope that top leadership is redoubling its efforts to get buy-in up and down the management chain for redesigning structures to allow innovation to take place.
- JPKab 4y ago
  So gross, and so true. I get bouts of nausea every time I hear "OKR" now.
radicaldreamer 4y ago
Similar sentiment here. I look at the state of my android phone today and see a company that seems like it got bored of building out a mobile platform after they “won” on usage.
jensensbutton 4y ago
They just brought this extremely innovative thing to market in very little time. The problem may have been that they haven't really had any competition in their core business to push them in a long time.
- dougmwne 4y ago
  This thing that no one except those bound by NDA has ever tried. I think I’ll reserve judgement for just a little bit before declaring Bard “extremely innovative.”
- sebzim4500 4y ago
  >They just brought this extremely innovative thing to market in very little time. Did they? Where can I use it?
JPKab 4y ago
I also want this to be true. I've just been soul-crushingly disappointed with Google's execution over the last few years, particularly the outright degradation of so many products (Gmail) or just not keeping up with competition (Hangouts is garbage compared to Zoom, Sheets still is barely usable, etc), or just screwing over users by deactivating features (I used to be able to play a youtube video's audio over my Google Home speaker, but they long ago removed that ability and I can only play Youtube music now). All of the above are just consumer rants, but let's not forget how frighteningly bad the Customer Support or support in general is for G Cloud. I WANT to get off of AWS, but these clowns at Alphabet have this amazing ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory with anyone trying out GCloud..... I hope Bard is great..... I want it to be.... but I'm not confident it will be.

layer8 4y ago

Having all humans as the target audience means that it will always be more profitable to make users the product instead of making them the customer. This in turn means that incentives are not geared towards being in the interest of the user.

btown 4y ago

One thing's for sure - it's much easier to quantitatively define an OKR for growing advertising mindshare (especially when you operate the exchanges that measure that mindshare!), than it is to, say, define an OKR for how a project loosely contributes to Google leading the mindshare in the movement towards generative AI outputs as they redefine practically every job in the world. And I'm certain that however much Google historically stressed that OKRs aren't tied to performance reviews, there's a lot of fear that deviating from OKRs could trigger one being on the top of the list for the next round of layoffs. So there are definitely headwinds that could stifle experimentation and innovation in such a brave new world. For Google's sake I hope that top leadership is redoubling its efforts to get buy-in up and down the management chain for redesigning structures to allow innovation to take place.

JPKab 4y ago
So gross, and so true. I get bouts of nausea every time I hear "OKR" now.

radicaldreamer 4y ago

Similar sentiment here. I look at the state of my android phone today and see a company that seems like it got bored of building out a mobile platform after they “won” on usage.

jensensbutton 4y ago

They just brought this extremely innovative thing to market in very little time. The problem may have been that they haven't really had any competition in their core business to push them in a long time.

dougmwne 4y ago
This thing that no one except those bound by NDA has ever tried. I think I’ll reserve judgement for just a little bit before declaring Bard “extremely innovative.”
sebzim4500 4y ago
>They just brought this extremely innovative thing to market in very little time. Did they? Where can I use it?

JPKab 4y ago

I also want this to be true. I've just been soul-crushingly disappointed with Google's execution over the last few years, particularly the outright degradation of so many products (Gmail) or just not keeping up with competition (Hangouts is garbage compared to Zoom, Sheets still is barely usable, etc), or just screwing over users by deactivating features (I used to be able to play a youtube video's audio over my Google Home speaker, but they long ago removed that ability and I can only play Youtube music now). All of the above are just consumer rants, but let's not forget how frighteningly bad the Customer Support or support in general is for G Cloud. I WANT to get off of AWS, but these clowns at Alphabet have this amazing ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory with anyone trying out GCloud..... I hope Bard is great..... I want it to be.... but I'm not confident it will be.