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> Is this just exec FOMO trying to catchup to Apple and Meta? Google doesn't work like this. People can almost autonomously spawn up small projects. If it lo

> Is this just exec FOMO trying to catchup to Apple and Meta? Google doesn't work like this. People can almost autonomously spawn up small projects. If it looks promising they keep getting more resources until it either has explosive growth and profits or someone higher in the chain thinks there isn't a current viable path for THAT version of the project to profitablity. Google might believe in XR and keep funding these small projects, but if none of them display evidence that that particular approach is going to be huge, then they move on. It's not top down. Sundar doesn't say, we need more XR. Team, go find me the most promising options, and then we'll fund it to the moon. And then a month later he gets bored and says, no, never mind, kill that. Let's chase another hype bubble. Only to then months later come back and say, team, we need more XR!

skeeter2020 2y ago
>> If it looks promising they keep getting more resources until it either has explosive growth and profits or someone higher in the chain thinks This may be the case, but everything eventually gets compared to the ad business, and the projected financials, no matter how optimistic, look terrible. Then the team leading the initiative wises up and drops it, gets tasked with something else or frustrated and those people leave.
brickfaced 2y ago
>Sundar doesn't say, we need more XR. Right, that's the job of some random PM who will launch a half-baked XR project that overlaps with a nearly identical XR project down the hall, which will compete with its fellow Google project/product in the marketplace and confuse customers before getting killed within 18 months of launch. See also Google Wallet and Google Wallet (yes), Allo and Duo and GChat and Hangouts, and so on.
- stephenr 2y ago
  > See also Google Wallet and Google Wallet (yes) ... wat? Are you suggesting Google has two different services both called Google wallet?
  - potatolicious 2y ago
    Correct. Google’s forays into payments, including identically named but different products, is so complex that it has a Wikipedia diagram: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Google_payment_apps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Google_payment_apps
    - stephenr 2y ago
      Oh sweet baby Jesus what the fuck. Not one, not two, but three different things called Google wallet, and four different things called Google Pay, one of which was formerly called Google wallet and one of which went on to be called Google wallet. How is this real?
      - xelamonster 2y ago
        Well this explains why every time I get payment autofill suggestions from Google it's a random one of four or five possible auth flows, and pulls from an arbitrary one of at least two separate data sources with different sets of cards saved... I let my password manager handle it now.
    - drcongo 2y ago
      That is genuinely jaw-dropping.
      - speed_spread 2y ago
        Wait till you see Google Jaw and then witness Google drop it.
    - sofixa 2y ago
      To be fair to them, the diagram makes it look worse than it actually was. From the user perspective, you got your Google Wallet app replaced by a Google Pay app which got replaced by a Google Wallet app. They all work the same (the last one has an extra tab for transit cards), had the same data/information (loyalty and bank cards), and even look pretty similar. Yeah, it was dumb having your app change names and slightly looks, but materially, little changed.
tgma 2y ago
B.S. Perhaps it was true 10+ years ago but not today, not even close. Also, "XR" today would not be considered a small project. Cardboard perhaps counts as one and that was almost a research toy. Anything on that scale Apple/Meta bets on is definitely brought up at the highest executive level and there has to be some thought going on what the response would be if any.
stephen_cagle 2y ago
Your experience at Google is not what I experienced at Google. Something of much smaller scale than this would require VP approval to begin work on. Disclaimer: I'm willing to believe that I just had less swing/power than you did at Google (or am not skilled at getting those things alight), but the idea that this was spun up "autonomously" (organically/grass roots) seems pretty far fetched. tldr; Most things were delegated hierarchically from my experience.
- onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago
  You're not going to be a L4 in Data Processing and start a Stadia project on your own, no. It would also be ridiculous for you to even try. But you can spin up smaller things, and L7+ can start major projects if they want to risk their career. And that's how most of the non-massive initiatives have worked. Massive initiatives like Stadia, Cloud, Maps, Social, Play, and Gemini are atypical at Google considering the thousands of smaller projects that have launched, maybe tens of thousands considering internal projects. Even most of those project decisions aren't happening at the C level.

skeeter2020 2y ago

>> If it looks promising they keep getting more resources until it either has explosive growth and profits or someone higher in the chain thinks This may be the case, but everything eventually gets compared to the ad business, and the projected financials, no matter how optimistic, look terrible. Then the team leading the initiative wises up and drops it, gets tasked with something else or frustrated and those people leave.

brickfaced 2y ago

>Sundar doesn't say, we need more XR. Right, that's the job of some random PM who will launch a half-baked XR project that overlaps with a nearly identical XR project down the hall, which will compete with its fellow Google project/product in the marketplace and confuse customers before getting killed within 18 months of launch. See also Google Wallet and Google Wallet (yes), Allo and Duo and GChat and Hangouts, and so on.

stephenr 2y ago
> See also Google Wallet and Google Wallet (yes) ... wat? Are you suggesting Google has two different services both called Google wallet?
- potatolicious 2y ago
  Correct. Google’s forays into payments, including identically named but different products, is so complex that it has a Wikipedia diagram: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Google_payment_apps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Google_payment_apps
  - stephenr 2y ago
    Oh sweet baby Jesus what the fuck. Not one, not two, but three different things called Google wallet, and four different things called Google Pay, one of which was formerly called Google wallet and one of which went on to be called Google wallet. How is this real?
    - xelamonster 2y ago
      Well this explains why every time I get payment autofill suggestions from Google it's a random one of four or five possible auth flows, and pulls from an arbitrary one of at least two separate data sources with different sets of cards saved... I let my password manager handle it now.
  - drcongo 2y ago
    That is genuinely jaw-dropping.
    - speed_spread 2y ago
      Wait till you see Google Jaw and then witness Google drop it.
  - sofixa 2y ago
    To be fair to them, the diagram makes it look worse than it actually was. From the user perspective, you got your Google Wallet app replaced by a Google Pay app which got replaced by a Google Wallet app. They all work the same (the last one has an extra tab for transit cards), had the same data/information (loyalty and bank cards), and even look pretty similar. Yeah, it was dumb having your app change names and slightly looks, but materially, little changed.

tgma 2y ago

B.S. Perhaps it was true 10+ years ago but not today, not even close. Also, "XR" today would not be considered a small project. Cardboard perhaps counts as one and that was almost a research toy. Anything on that scale Apple/Meta bets on is definitely brought up at the highest executive level and there has to be some thought going on what the response would be if any.

stephen_cagle 2y ago

Your experience at Google is not what I experienced at Google. Something of much smaller scale than this would require VP approval to begin work on. Disclaimer: I'm willing to believe that I just had less swing/power than you did at Google (or am not skilled at getting those things alight), but the idea that this was spun up "autonomously" (organically/grass roots) seems pretty far fetched. tldr; Most things were delegated hierarchically from my experience.

onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago
You're not going to be a L4 in Data Processing and start a Stadia project on your own, no. It would also be ridiculous for you to even try. But you can spin up smaller things, and L7+ can start major projects if they want to risk their career. And that's how most of the non-massive initiatives have worked. Massive initiatives like Stadia, Cloud, Maps, Social, Play, and Gemini are atypical at Google considering the thousands of smaller projects that have launched, maybe tens of thousands considering internal projects. Even most of those project decisions aren't happening at the C level.