Founder who sold his startup to Google says the company has lost its mission, is mismanaged and has no sense of urgency

[GON]

Interesting article. My takeaway is a large organization that generates revenue without competition/ without effort almost always becomes a undriven organization.

"The way I see it, Google has four core cultural problems," Seshadri said. "They are all the natural consequences of having a money-printing machine called 'Ads' that has kept growing relentlessly every year, hiding all other sins. (1) no mission, (2) no urgency, (3) delusions of exceptionalism, (4) mismanagement."

Founder who sold his startup to Google says the company has lost its mission, is mismanaged and has no sense of urgency

A former Google employee said the technology giant is inefficient, plagued by mismanagement and paralyzed by risk.

www.cnbc.com

 

[64bawagon]

Sounds like pretty much every company I ever worked for.

 

[oggb]

"The way I see it, Google has all Fortune 500 sized companies have four core cultural problems," Seshadri said. "They are all the natural consequences of having a money-printing machine called 'Ads' of being a publicly traded corporation that has kept growing relentlessly every year, hiding all other sins. (1) no mission, (2) no urgency, (3) delusions of exceptionalism, (4) mismanagement."

Fixed it

 

[pbm]

I would bet that if GOOGLE's internal emails were made public they would be very similar to Twitter's....

 

[KrisZ]

Nothing new here.

 

[dnewton3]

This is so very true, especially in today's circles of tech and communications. But honestly is extends to nearly every aspect of business.

Large Corporations:
- upsides
* enough money reserves to weather just about any storm or downturn.
* can often provide more salary range to entice new talent into the door (though it stifles once inside).
* can drive innovation with massive engineering and tech resources (note than "can" does not mean "always will"; some do and some don't)
- downsides
* slow as molasses in January to make changes and respond to fast-developing opportunities
* pretty much everything is done by committee consent; there's little individual willingness to take risks for fear of reprisals
* can be deaf to customer complaints
* can be deaf to internal complaints
* if few or no competitors are in the immediate market, then large corporations can dictate pricing

Small Companies:
- upsides
* are fleet-footed to respond to just about anything
* typically will not ignore customer complaints
* may or may not ignore internal complaints (some do; some don't)
* have the desire to innovate (but may not have the money)
- downsides
* cannot weather large financial storms
* cannot weather any other storm either, for that matter (social pressures, employee disengagement, poor decisions resulting in market share loss)
* can't afford big investments in engineering/research (depending on product line, this may or may not be incredibily important)
* can't endure regulatory challenges and pressures
* have little or no money to put into lobbying for their side (like it or not, it's an element of business one cannot avoid in many industries)

I see large corporations akin to air-craft carriers; huge behemoths which typically are very difficult to sink due to the massive resources they posses. But they cannot start or stop quickly, or turn on a dime. Whereas small companies are like frigates; they are quick and manuverable, but acting alone they have little ability to survive any kind of big storm or sustained attack.

 

[Passport1]

If you are old enough you will remember that Google was called this back in '96.

 

[Hall]

Like the guy really cares.... He never has to work again in his life. He took the money and ran so he's a hypocrite talking about how Google operates today.

 

[JGmazda]

If you are old enough you will remember that Google was called this back in '96.

View attachment 140633

...I'm going to "Backrub" that on the internet!

 

[KrisZ]

Like the guy really cares.... He never has to work again in his life. He took the money and ran so he's a hypocrite talking about how Google operates today.

Exactly. That’s like selling your favorite car and complaining how the new owner treats it.
He had a crack at it and bailed. His opinion is as relevant as last years snow.

 

[pbm]

Like the guy really cares.... He never has to work again in his life. He took the money and ran so he's a hypocrite talking about how Google operates today.

Do you feel the same about all the billionaires who jet to Davos each year and then try to tell the rest of us how to ‘behave’? At least this guy is being truthful.

 

[Wrenchturner44]

GON, Thanks for posting. This reminds me of yet another article about large conglomerate corporations (GE, Honeywell, Danaher, 3M, Ingersol Rand, United Tech, etc).

What does the breakup of GE say about the future of conglomerates?

General Electric's decision to split up its company three ways marks its departure from the once-popular conglomerate model.

www.yahoo.com

All of these big conglomerrates want to participate in the fast moving and high profit tech company circles, but they are too bloated and too slow to react to smaller market competitors.

Several of the management at GE saw this and thus the reason for the breakup. Remaining mgmt at these companies try to sell shareholders on the merits of the company's diverse businesses which is the nature of the conglomerate itself. The problem comes to pass with each of these businesses that are trying to compete with smaller entities in the same market whereby the smaller companies can react more quickly, and are more nimble to deliver solutions, products, etc to the market in a more tailored fashion.

Younger, more savvy investors seem to be very keen on these facts, and that is where they seem to be attracting most of the growth money from.

 

[Hall]

Do you feel the same about all the billionaires who jet to

Definitely don't care what they say or think

 

[Owen Lucas]

* can drive innovation with massive engineering and tech resources (note than "can" does not mean "always will"; some do and some don't)
- downsides
* slow as molasses in January to make changes and respond to fast-developing opportunities

Google originally invented a core part, from what I understand, of Chat GPT and then open sourced it. Open AI took advantage of this and developed a better product, using Google's own tech.

"GPT stands for “generative pretrained transformer,” and it was Google that invented the transformer language model in 2018 with BERT (bidirectional encoder representations from transformers), which Google now uses to enhance its search and translation capabilities."

https://www.fastcompany.com/90839649/google-not-openai-has-the-most-to-gain-from-generative-ai#:~:text=GPT%20stands%20for%20%E2%80%9Cgenerative%20pretrained,its%20search%20and%20translation%20capabilities.

Google worked on AI projects since then but did not leverage the idea enough. Maybe for the reasons you mention, a committee didn't think it was relevant?

Google is known for lot's of die-on-the-vine projects and killing off programs. Regardless, it will be interesting to see their AI's take on search and public acceptance.

Killed by Google

Killed by Google is the open source list of dead Google products, services, and devices. It serves as a tribute and memorial of beloved services and products killed by Google.

killedbygoogle.com

 

[Pablo]

Well duh.

Frying pan to the head DUH.

 

[CKN]

Exactly. That’s like selling your favorite car and complaining how the new owner treats it.
He had a crack at it and bailed. His opinion is as relevant as last years snow.

This^^^^^^^. Sour grapes is my take....

 

[JC1]

Sounds like the 1970s-80s Xerox..... Just because you invent something doesn't mean you cash in....

 

[pbm]

Definitely don't care what they say or think

Unfortunately a lot of our so-called leaders listen to these Davos hypocrites.

 

[Pablo]

Unfortunately a lot of our so-called leaders listen to these Davos hypocrites.

They listen to them as if coming from God on high

 

[andrew_j]

I would bet that if GOOGLE's internal emails were made public they would be very similar to Twitter's....

How is that relevant to the OP about a company that has no focus on business? Or you lost yours too posting that?