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Observation by Benedict Evans: almost all key divisional leads at Google were born in India. Android, Engineering, Advertising, Youtube… Polar opposite to Appl

Observation by Benedict Evans: almost all key divisional leads at Google were born in India. Android, Engineering, Advertising, Youtube… Polar opposite to Apple, which is a white boys club.

SoftwareMaven 14y ago
It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that Apple's 20 years older than Google, Apple has had really good retention, and the make-up of the Valley has changed dramatically in that 20 years? The implied racial dig is beneath HN. EDIT: Another thought: Google has also done a huge amount of its growth through acquisitions, whereas Apple has done very few. That likely further pushes Apple's leadership to "old-school" people in the Valley: they haven't brought in large numbers of executives of smaller companies that effectively start at the middle-top in Google.
- pinaceae 14y ago
  another factor might be Google's focus on PhDs.
jholman 14y ago
There are lots of Indians in top Google management, definitely, but they're hardly the majority. Maybe 25% of "key divisional leads", maybe 25% of SVPs (a group that greatly overlaps with "key divisional leads"). First of all, there's no "key divisional lead" of "engineering". That's not a division at the top level. That'd be a pretty stupid top-level division, in a company which is mostly engineering (I'm deliberately obfuscating exact ratios). Second, the SVP of Ads is Polish, and the SVP of Youtube is Persian. So that's two more things wrong with the four examples. Indian: Chrome/Apps/Android, G+, and Sales/Business. Not Indian: Ads, Search, YouTube, TechInfra, Finance, Legal, Sergei (a law unto himself), Geo/Commerce, Motorola, HR, PR, ..... In short, who the heck is Benedict Evans, and given that he is gibbering, why are you quoting him?
- pinaceae 14y ago
  http://ben-evans.com/ http://ben-evans.com/ thanks for clearing this up, hard to find the real org chart of google.
  - jholman 14y ago
    Yeah, I too can find no publicly available org chart. I was careful to restrict myself to public information in that comment (except, I guess, "engineering is not a top-level division"). Several easy searches, like google.com/search?q=google+management or "google svp", lead to this page: http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/management/ http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/management/ You also get some media reports from 2011, which discuss several key players from that era. I admit that doesn't tell you about "key divisional leads", but it does give you a list of who Google thinks is worth publishing about. As for Ben Evans's tweet, he just made some random shit up. Again, 3/4 of the people he mentions as being Indian are NOT INDIAN.
- benedictevans 14y ago
  Settle down, Beavis. http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/management/ http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/management/ "Nikesh oversees all revenue and customer operations" - revenue, and more. Two SVPs are listed for specifically for engineering, both Indian. Android and Chrome, obviously. And there is no bio given for Salar Kamangar, Youtube, which sounded as thought it could have been an Indian name but obviously wasn't. That's quite a high proportion of Indian people in senior positions, don't you think? Beyond that, you're getting very upset by minor lack of precision in a tweet, of all things. -Benedict Evans
guyzero 14y ago
"almost all key divisional leads at Google were born in India. Android, Engineering, Advertising, Youtube" So factually wrong.
plinkplonk 14y ago
Does Apple have any non white VP level/very senior management level folks? (I don't have a problem with this being the case, just curious).

Observation by Benedict Evans: almost all key divisional leads at Google were born in India. Android, Engineering, Advertising, Youtube… Polar opposite to Apple, which is a white boys club.

SoftwareMaven 14y ago

It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that Apple's 20 years older than Google, Apple has had really good retention, and the make-up of the Valley has changed dramatically in that 20 years? The implied racial dig is beneath HN. EDIT: Another thought: Google has also done a huge amount of its growth through acquisitions, whereas Apple has done very few. That likely further pushes Apple's leadership to "old-school" people in the Valley: they haven't brought in large numbers of executives of smaller companies that effectively start at the middle-top in Google.

pinaceae 14y ago
another factor might be Google's focus on PhDs.

jholman 14y ago

There are lots of Indians in top Google management, definitely, but they're hardly the majority. Maybe 25% of "key divisional leads", maybe 25% of SVPs (a group that greatly overlaps with "key divisional leads"). First of all, there's no "key divisional lead" of "engineering". That's not a division at the top level. That'd be a pretty stupid top-level division, in a company which is mostly engineering (I'm deliberately obfuscating exact ratios). Second, the SVP of Ads is Polish, and the SVP of Youtube is Persian. So that's two more things wrong with the four examples. Indian: Chrome/Apps/Android, G+, and Sales/Business. Not Indian: Ads, Search, YouTube, TechInfra, Finance, Legal, Sergei (a law unto himself), Geo/Commerce, Motorola, HR, PR, ..... In short, who the heck is Benedict Evans, and given that he is gibbering, why are you quoting him?

pinaceae 14y ago
http://ben-evans.com/ http://ben-evans.com/ thanks for clearing this up, hard to find the real org chart of google.
- jholman 14y ago
  Yeah, I too can find no publicly available org chart. I was careful to restrict myself to public information in that comment (except, I guess, "engineering is not a top-level division"). Several easy searches, like google.com/search?q=google+management or "google svp", lead to this page: http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/management/ http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/management/ You also get some media reports from 2011, which discuss several key players from that era. I admit that doesn't tell you about "key divisional leads", but it does give you a list of who Google thinks is worth publishing about. As for Ben Evans's tweet, he just made some random shit up. Again, 3/4 of the people he mentions as being Indian are NOT INDIAN.
benedictevans 14y ago
Settle down, Beavis. http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/management/ http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/management/ "Nikesh oversees all revenue and customer operations" - revenue, and more. Two SVPs are listed for specifically for engineering, both Indian. Android and Chrome, obviously. And there is no bio given for Salar Kamangar, Youtube, which sounded as thought it could have been an Indian name but obviously wasn't. That's quite a high proportion of Indian people in senior positions, don't you think? Beyond that, you're getting very upset by minor lack of precision in a tweet, of all things. -Benedict Evans

guyzero 14y ago

"almost all key divisional leads at Google were born in India. Android, Engineering, Advertising, Youtube" So factually wrong.

plinkplonk 14y ago

Does Apple have any non white VP level/very senior management level folks? (I don't have a problem with this being the case, just curious).