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Big Techs do have ways of rolling out new services step by step. Paul Buchheit's stories about Gmail and AdSense are good examples. I was an early Gmail user w

by flail 1y ago

Big Techs do have ways of rolling out new services step by step. Paul Buchheit's stories about Gmail and AdSense are good examples. I was an early Gmail user when it was invitation-only and invitations were scarcely distributed (only as fast as the infrastructure could handle). So, while I understand the difference in PR costs, it's not like they don't have tools to run smaller experiments. I agree with the huge bureaucracy cost. On the other hand, they really have (relatively) infinite resources if they care to deploy them. And sometimes they do. And they still fail. They often fail even when they try a Skunk Works-like approach. Google Wave was famously developed as a corporate Lean Startup (before there was Lean Startup). It was a disaster. Precisely because they did close to zero validation pre-release. A side note, a huge flop it was (although Buzz and Google+ were bigger), it didn't hurt them long term in PR or reputation.

com2kid 1y ago
Google had 3,000 employees when Gmail launched. Now they have over 100,000 employees! People criticize Microsoft's historical fiefdom model, and it had its issues, but it also allowed orgs to find what worked for them and basically run independently. Of course it also had orgs fighting with each other and killing off good products. Xbox was also a skunk works project at Microsoft (a few good books have been written about it!) and so was Microsoft Band. Xbox succeeded, Band failed for a number of reasons not related to the product or execution itself. (Politics and some historical corporate karma). IMHO the only company good at deploying infinite resources quickly is Apple. 1 billion developing the first Apple Watch (Microsoft spend under 50 million on two generations of Band!) and then they kept going after the market, even though the first version was kinda meh. In comparison Google wear was on again of again for years until they finally took it seriously recently. I'm sure they spent lots of $, but the end result is nowheres near what Apple pulled off.
- flail 1y ago
  Sure, it was way easier to move at Google in the early 2000s than it is now. Yet, one has to admit they still keep trying. The list of products that they tried and killed doesn't show signs of stagnation: https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/ And that's only the things that they have released. I'd bet that there are lots more that never make it to the public. And I expect no less from Microsoft, by the way. Microsoft is, in fact, a great case in point of how failed releases don't hurt the company's PR long-term. How many failures have they scored trying to catch up with the missed opportunities of the 2000s? Smartphones & tablets, search, music players, social media. They were late to move the Office to the cloud, and kept pumping dollars into the Explorer/Edge lost cause, too. I don't know enough details, but Xbox seems more like an outlier than a norm. Yet they rebounded with Azure and made some good bets with AI, and are doing better than ever. However, we don't see a stream of new product bets coming from them. Oh, and on Apple: I wouldn't discount the role of cult-like following in repeated product success. Neither of the other big techs has such a relationship with its user base. You don't see many raving fans of Facebook or Google. And you definitely have millions of people who would buy any new Apple product simply because it is a new Apple product. It's like Joel Spolsky but on a global scale. In the 2000s, whatever Joel Spolsky touched turned into gold. Stack Overflow? Check. Trello? Check. Was there something unique about these products? Details, sure. But the biggest thing was Joel's leverage. Having run a highly popular blog for developers, he could instantly reach out to his early adopters. Given that many of the readers were actual fans, they'd jump on the opportunity, whatever it was. So the early traction was not a problem (which was especially crucial for the developers' forum). Scale that up to the big tech context, and you get Steve Jobs. A side note: I wonder how long it will take Tim Cook to dismantle that. You can already see cracks.

by flail 1y ago

com2kid 1y ago

Google had 3,000 employees when Gmail launched. Now they have over 100,000 employees! People criticize Microsoft's historical fiefdom model, and it had its issues, but it also allowed orgs to find what worked for them and basically run independently. Of course it also had orgs fighting with each other and killing off good products. Xbox was also a skunk works project at Microsoft (a few good books have been written about it!) and so was Microsoft Band. Xbox succeeded, Band failed for a number of reasons not related to the product or execution itself. (Politics and some historical corporate karma). IMHO the only company good at deploying infinite resources quickly is Apple. 1 billion developing the first Apple Watch (Microsoft spend under 50 million on two generations of Band!) and then they kept going after the market, even though the first version was kinda meh. In comparison Google wear was on again of again for years until they finally took it seriously recently. I'm sure they spent lots of $, but the end result is nowheres near what Apple pulled off.

flail 1y ago
Sure, it was way easier to move at Google in the early 2000s than it is now. Yet, one has to admit they still keep trying. The list of products that they tried and killed doesn't show signs of stagnation: https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/ And that's only the things that they have released. I'd bet that there are lots more that never make it to the public. And I expect no less from Microsoft, by the way. Microsoft is, in fact, a great case in point of how failed releases don't hurt the company's PR long-term. How many failures have they scored trying to catch up with the missed opportunities of the 2000s? Smartphones & tablets, search, music players, social media. They were late to move the Office to the cloud, and kept pumping dollars into the Explorer/Edge lost cause, too. I don't know enough details, but Xbox seems more like an outlier than a norm. Yet they rebounded with Azure and made some good bets with AI, and are doing better than ever. However, we don't see a stream of new product bets coming from them. Oh, and on Apple: I wouldn't discount the role of cult-like following in repeated product success. Neither of the other big techs has such a relationship with its user base. You don't see many raving fans of Facebook or Google. And you definitely have millions of people who would buy any new Apple product simply because it is a new Apple product. It's like Joel Spolsky but on a global scale. In the 2000s, whatever Joel Spolsky touched turned into gold. Stack Overflow? Check. Trello? Check. Was there something unique about these products? Details, sure. But the biggest thing was Joel's leverage. Having run a highly popular blog for developers, he could instantly reach out to his early adopters. Given that many of the readers were actual fans, they'd jump on the opportunity, whatever it was. So the early traction was not a problem (which was especially crucial for the developers' forum). Scale that up to the big tech context, and you get Steve Jobs. A side note: I wonder how long it will take Tim Cook to dismantle that. You can already see cracks.