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Transformer is research, which could is just function of hiring good folks and spending money, not any business goal. And Waymo came out in 2009, one of the las

Transformer is research, which could is just function of hiring good folks and spending money, not any business goal. And Waymo came out in 2009, one of the last product where google had some long term goal and they actually stuck with it instead of discontinuing it. If you look into 2005-2009, there were products like Chrome, Waymo, Youtube, GCP, Google docs and lot more that were very ambitious. After 2009 I can't name any one product on that realm.

treis 2y ago
Has anyone come up with a product like that recently? It seems like the Web is basically the same as it was in 2010.
- YetAnotherNick 2y ago
  Figma is something that definitely comes to mind. And somewhat notion and retool.
- immibis 2y ago
  The web is way more centralized than in 2010.
crazygringo 2y ago
If you're going to completely ignore the entire category of "research", then I don't know what to tell you. Because the whole subject here is what impressive things Google has done. How can you possibly exclude anything that derives from their research? And no, Waymo didn't "come out in 2009". It still hasn't come out except in three limited areas, but it's shown astonishing success where it has. So again, if you're only going to count the year a project was started, and not the decades of work it takes to build a world-changing business... I don't know what to tell you. Except just... talk about moving the goalposts. Geez. I'm pretty sure there isn't a single company on earth that you're going to find impressive enough.
- YetAnotherNick 2y ago
  It's not at all moving the goalposts. You can at least see transformer is not an ambitious project for Google. It's just few researcher getting paid well doing good research. Google put lot more resources in say Alphago. What was argued was not whether Google created impressive things. I was clear what I meant was Google hasn't started anything to their product suite. Adding to the product suite is more challenging than research project for the company, and it was where Google thrived and which led to success of Google.

treis 2y ago

Has anyone come up with a product like that recently? It seems like the Web is basically the same as it was in 2010.

YetAnotherNick 2y ago
Figma is something that definitely comes to mind. And somewhat notion and retool.
immibis 2y ago
The web is way more centralized than in 2010.

crazygringo 2y ago

If you're going to completely ignore the entire category of "research", then I don't know what to tell you. Because the whole subject here is what impressive things Google has done. How can you possibly exclude anything that derives from their research? And no, Waymo didn't "come out in 2009". It still hasn't come out except in three limited areas, but it's shown astonishing success where it has. So again, if you're only going to count the year a project was started, and not the decades of work it takes to build a world-changing business... I don't know what to tell you. Except just... talk about moving the goalposts. Geez. I'm pretty sure there isn't a single company on earth that you're going to find impressive enough.

YetAnotherNick 2y ago
It's not at all moving the goalposts. You can at least see transformer is not an ambitious project for Google. It's just few researcher getting paid well doing good research. Google put lot more resources in say Alphago. What was argued was not whether Google created impressive things. I was clear what I meant was Google hasn't started anything to their product suite. Adding to the product suite is more challenging than research project for the company, and it was where Google thrived and which led to success of Google.