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Exciting? Possibly for those involved. I hate to say this, as I'm generally optimistic towards most developments like this, but over the last decade I've becom

by ts330 2y ago

Exciting? Possibly for those involved. I hate to say this, as I'm generally optimistic towards most developments like this, but over the last decade I've become so apathetic towards anything and everything from Google. They've lost so much mindshare and credibility. Their org structure leads to stagnation left, right and centre. I'd rather tolerate the poor status quo in React land than take any sort of bet on Google getting something "newish" right. It wasn't always like this.

kilroy123 2y ago
I agree as someone who has spent the past decade working in Angular all day and then React. And I don't love React.
vasco 2y ago
Google was too innovative and successful to use external consultants and so the consultants joined the company as employees and did it from the inside!
- pavlov 2y ago
  Google today feels like Nokia of the mid-2000s. Victim of its own massive success, taken over by internal politics and divisions. Employs lots of smart people who figured out key ideas for next-gen tech early, but the organization is unable to take any of those innovations to market. And so it’s just stuck milking its cash cow. Google’s AI strategy is as clear as Nokia’s smartphone software strategy was.
  - ta988 2y ago
    They took some of the best brains, spoiled them with high salaries and glory and took their best years to make them work on dumb problems and projects that were cancelled at various stages of their life.
    - adrianmsmith 2y ago
      Those best brains did produce lots of interesting things, back in the day (not recently). The Google search algorithm, the ads auctioning system, Gmail, Golang, certain parts of Google Cloud like BigQuery (create relational tables, just stuff data in there, just scales by itself without "provisioning", write SQL queries including joins e.g. over hundreds of billions of rows...)
      - unclebucknasty 2y ago
        Don't forget Google Wave. May 2010 - August 2010. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wave https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wave
pookha 2y ago
It was mostly always like this. You might go back further, but since 2008 I've been dealing with google snake-oil. They sold a customer I worked with a "search appliance" in 2007 that was more or less a paperweight. They packaged up "commodity hardware" in a fancy yellow google case and overcharged this military unit out the ass for what was a half-assed map-reduce algorithm with no security and no means of compartmentalizing the data that was stored on the appliance. This was years before the elk-stack. I can still distinctly remember the commander - an old special forces guy - telling the google-rep that he wanted to do a Roshambo game (Cartman nut kicking contest). A year or so later I cracked open their case and saw that they'd essentially packaged up an old dell poweredge 6K series with slow magnetic drives (and raid-5 lol). Maybe that fly's if you'd chained fifteen of these things into a cluster but that's not how they sold them to their customers. Google is a dishonest company filled with immoral lechers.
bheadmaster 2y ago
Golang is one of the Google products that I consider revolutionary in programming. But then again, it may just be because they employed the rockstars (Rob Pike, Ken Thomson, and Robert Griesemer) to work on it. I suppose it's less about the company, and more about who the company chooses to work on the project.
- kardianos 2y ago
  Exactly, but the Go team appears to have the exact opposite mindset as Google product managers. They care about maintaining a product and compatibility, without major API revisions. They appear to care about first principle engineering, not "let's make a new product!". Okay, watching this video, and they just infantized their audience "if someone makes you uncomfortable, come find a staff" as if the conference goers aren't adults. That makes me really uncomfortable that they think adults can't handle themselves and work things out.
- twelfthnight 2y ago
  I hear "revolutionary" claimed about languages like Rust, Haskell and Zig, but rarely about Go. What about Golang is revolutionary to you?
  - adrianmsmith 2y ago
    The way concurrency works is pretty unique amongst mainstream languages. Java has just copied some parts of how concurrency works in Go, but that's nearly 20 years after Go was released. It's extremely easy to start up code concurrently with "go foo()". You can start up lots of such functions concurrently, as it works in userspace. Like async code, but no "colored functions" problem.
    - ildjarn 2y ago
      Colored functions is only a problem in JS
      - lokhura 2y ago
Workaccount2 2y ago
Everyday that Sundar is still CEO leaves me more and more bewildered. I cannot figure out how Brin and Page (who together own voting majority) look at google of 2024 and say "Yup, this is what we want Google to be".
- lgleason 2y ago
  They have essentially retired and are just enjoying the money they made from it.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- agotterer 2y ago
  The goal of a public company is to increase shareholder value. Hard to argue that Sundar hasn’t done that. Revenue has increased 5 years straight. Market cap with the exception of a dip during Covid is strong and is approaching its all time high. As a Goolgle user and long time admirer, there have certainly been some disappointments and mistakes over the years. But there’s also been some major accomplishments which people sometimes overlook. While still early, Waymo seems to be on the right trajectory and may be a key player in autonomous vehicles. Let’s not forget Googles work on transformers, which is heavily responsible for the current AI boom. That’s just two that come to mind, I’m sure there are others. Maybe these were started before Sundar, but he’s been CEO for almost 9 years now. So he gets credit. Google may have some culture challenges to work through, brain drain, and identity issues. But I don’t think their story is written just yet. With a giant stock pile of cash they have plenty of time and resources to buy or figure their way out of any perceived issues (if that’s even what they need to do). Microsoft did it. And if you really want to have your mind blown, go take a look at IBMs stock chart. I didn’t expect to see it approaching an all time high.
  - twelfthnight 2y ago
    What choice can you point to that has increased Google's market cap? Google's search quality is deteriorating, Waymo is yet to make a profit, GCP is struggling, "Attention is all you need" was too early on to credit Sundar, and since then Google's reputation is flagging due to embarrassing AI models... I think Google's market cap is increase _despite_ Sundar, not because. That said, Google does have enough resources to turn it around, I just don't think Sundar is the right person to do it.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

by ts330 2y ago

kilroy123 2y ago

I agree as someone who has spent the past decade working in Angular all day and then React. And I don't love React.

vasco 2y ago

Google was too innovative and successful to use external consultants and so the consultants joined the company as employees and did it from the inside!

pavlov 2y ago
Google today feels like Nokia of the mid-2000s. Victim of its own massive success, taken over by internal politics and divisions. Employs lots of smart people who figured out key ideas for next-gen tech early, but the organization is unable to take any of those innovations to market. And so it’s just stuck milking its cash cow. Google’s AI strategy is as clear as Nokia’s smartphone software strategy was.
- ta988 2y ago
  They took some of the best brains, spoiled them with high salaries and glory and took their best years to make them work on dumb problems and projects that were cancelled at various stages of their life.
  - adrianmsmith 2y ago
    Those best brains did produce lots of interesting things, back in the day (not recently). The Google search algorithm, the ads auctioning system, Gmail, Golang, certain parts of Google Cloud like BigQuery (create relational tables, just stuff data in there, just scales by itself without "provisioning", write SQL queries including joins e.g. over hundreds of billions of rows...)
    - unclebucknasty 2y ago
      Don't forget Google Wave. May 2010 - August 2010. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wave https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wave

pookha 2y ago

It was mostly always like this. You might go back further, but since 2008 I've been dealing with google snake-oil. They sold a customer I worked with a "search appliance" in 2007 that was more or less a paperweight. They packaged up "commodity hardware" in a fancy yellow google case and overcharged this military unit out the ass for what was a half-assed map-reduce algorithm with no security and no means of compartmentalizing the data that was stored on the appliance. This was years before the elk-stack. I can still distinctly remember the commander - an old special forces guy - telling the google-rep that he wanted to do a Roshambo game (Cartman nut kicking contest). A year or so later I cracked open their case and saw that they'd essentially packaged up an old dell poweredge 6K series with slow magnetic drives (and raid-5 lol). Maybe that fly's if you'd chained fifteen of these things into a cluster but that's not how they sold them to their customers. Google is a dishonest company filled with immoral lechers.

bheadmaster 2y ago

Golang is one of the Google products that I consider revolutionary in programming. But then again, it may just be because they employed the rockstars (Rob Pike, Ken Thomson, and Robert Griesemer) to work on it. I suppose it's less about the company, and more about who the company chooses to work on the project.

kardianos 2y ago
Exactly, but the Go team appears to have the exact opposite mindset as Google product managers. They care about maintaining a product and compatibility, without major API revisions. They appear to care about first principle engineering, not "let's make a new product!". Okay, watching this video, and they just infantized their audience "if someone makes you uncomfortable, come find a staff" as if the conference goers aren't adults. That makes me really uncomfortable that they think adults can't handle themselves and work things out.
twelfthnight 2y ago
I hear "revolutionary" claimed about languages like Rust, Haskell and Zig, but rarely about Go. What about Golang is revolutionary to you?
- adrianmsmith 2y ago
  The way concurrency works is pretty unique amongst mainstream languages. Java has just copied some parts of how concurrency works in Go, but that's nearly 20 years after Go was released. It's extremely easy to start up code concurrently with "go foo()". You can start up lots of such functions concurrently, as it works in userspace. Like async code, but no "colored functions" problem.
  - ildjarn 2y ago
    Colored functions is only a problem in JS
    - lokhura 2y ago

Workaccount2 2y ago

Everyday that Sundar is still CEO leaves me more and more bewildered. I cannot figure out how Brin and Page (who together own voting majority) look at google of 2024 and say "Yup, this is what we want Google to be".

lgleason 2y ago
They have essentially retired and are just enjoying the money they made from it.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
agotterer 2y ago
The goal of a public company is to increase shareholder value. Hard to argue that Sundar hasn’t done that. Revenue has increased 5 years straight. Market cap with the exception of a dip during Covid is strong and is approaching its all time high. As a Goolgle user and long time admirer, there have certainly been some disappointments and mistakes over the years. But there’s also been some major accomplishments which people sometimes overlook. While still early, Waymo seems to be on the right trajectory and may be a key player in autonomous vehicles. Let’s not forget Googles work on transformers, which is heavily responsible for the current AI boom. That’s just two that come to mind, I’m sure there are others. Maybe these were started before Sundar, but he’s been CEO for almost 9 years now. So he gets credit. Google may have some culture challenges to work through, brain drain, and identity issues. But I don’t think their story is written just yet. With a giant stock pile of cash they have plenty of time and resources to buy or figure their way out of any perceived issues (if that’s even what they need to do). Microsoft did it. And if you really want to have your mind blown, go take a look at IBMs stock chart. I didn’t expect to see it approaching an all time high.
- twelfthnight 2y ago
  What choice can you point to that has increased Google's market cap? Google's search quality is deteriorating, Waymo is yet to make a profit, GCP is struggling, "Attention is all you need" was too early on to credit Sundar, and since then Google's reputation is flagging due to embarrassing AI models... I think Google's market cap is increase _despite_ Sundar, not because. That said, Google does have enough resources to turn it around, I just don't think Sundar is the right person to do it.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]