I’ve maintained this idea for a while as well. It’s really only after Pichai took over that Google and Android both have started scrapping useful programs/apps/services, made needless change to make products worse, and in general just haven’t really innovated much at all. At least when compared to how the company was run when Larry Page and Erik Schmidt were running the company.
We can point fingers at Pichai, but I don’t think Larry Page and Erik Schmidt would have been able to keep Google true to its visions even if they really wanted to. Google simply became too big and successful compared its humble cool techy startup era, no way it was remaining the same all along.
I also have the impression that google jumped on the feature treadmill that microsoft is on. Working with Google ads + analytics in 2016 was a pleasant experience, it was fairly simple and it worked. I could easily maintain it as a side project next to my main job, but a few years later and it had become a feature treadmill where all new features seemed to have 3 goals in common: waste my time by making me migrate settings to basically end up with the same end result, make the product more convoluted to use + milk more money per customer. Add to that, that facebook campaigns were both easier to run and resulted in more good leads for us and it doesn’t look good for Google.
At least Ballmer was right about what was important. He just kinda sucked at getting it out the door.
We all make fun of that “developers”… speech?.. but that really has been Microsoft’s core strength the whole time. A platform’s relevance is its software. MS knew this ever since the Windows 9x days, where they deliberately did not fix bugs if SimCity relied on them.
The thought that comes to mind for me is that all of the tech companies are in a heavy cycle of stock/investor profit mode. It seems like every major company is just pumping the bottom line for stock gains.
I know that can lead to R&D money and advances, but I’m only really seeing that with M$ buying (I mean partnering) ChatGPT for their CoPilot to be the next big thing for Office/Microsoft 365.
What has Apple done new lately? iPhones just get better specs right?
Google, being the subject of the article, they do seem like they’re getting their butts kicked trying to compete with OpenAI.
Broadcom buys VMware (which wasn’t really doing anything wildly new IMO lately), openly plans to milk it for profit, and has been pretty honest about not giving a shit about customers, until their latest post where they are trying to speak against the obvious aforementioned ‘not-giving-a-shit’
Who else?
Any major innovations lately not coming to my mind, or all just bottom line pumping?
You are too kind to Microsoft, buying into innovation isn’t the same as creating it.
If you aren’t seeing innovation from Apple it’s likely because you’re an Apple hater. For example, they released their own CPU chips quite recently. The smartphone is now a matured product, any innovation would likely be something very different.
Broadcom? Who cares. Thats enterprise shit. It’s like mentioning Oracle in the same list. They are milking corporations. Completely different paradigm.
You don’t mention Amazon, but there’s another potential sinking ship. Their brand loyalty is fading and they don’t seem to care but it’s still has momentum to recover.
Google is the real concern. They have lost their luster. Their main product is search and it is getting worse and no one trusts their new offerings to last because their product grace yard is a landfill. No one can say the same about any of these other companies.
Windows is still the same meh.
iPhones, Apple Watches, etc are meh.
Google search is done. Everyone that was an early adopter is fleeing to the competition, desperately looking for something that sucks less.
Eventually someone will find the new way to search the wealth of information found on the web. It does not look like that company will be Google. It’s also unlikely to be Apple or Microsoft but both of those companies have mature products that aren’t experience a decline in the way that Google search is.
HPE just made the fastest supercomputer in the world by 2.5x the closest system in 2nd place a couple years ago. Frontier breaking the exascale barrier was pretty huge.
I’m betting you’re right. Hopefully they can crack that last inch holding us back from some sweet ass fusion power, or some kind of cancer+everything else miracle cure…
It’s the same for many tech CEO’s. Arguably, Apple hasn’t had a hit under Tim Cook, although I’d say he’s definitely the most successful of the FAANG leaders. Andy Jassy’s legacy at Amazon is 18 months of rolling layoffs, missing the boat on AI despite having the most popular consumer AI product in Alexa, and forcing millions into an office in some of the cruelest methods possible. Sundar is much of the same, but including mass enshitification of basically every successful Google product, from YouTube to Search, all while also fucking up severely with AI, RTO, and layoffs. To make things worse, he’s turned the most exciting tech company into just another boomer tech company like IBM.
The pandemic has shown that once the visionaries have left, the current crop of CEO’s in tech are just really not good at their jobs. Their sole role is to keep shareholders happy, and that’s it. As a shareholder, that should probably make you think twice about putting money into legacy tech, and maybe looking outwards to see what those that were laid off have managed to do elsewhere.
None of the CEOs you’ve mentioned have changed before or after the pandemic except AMZN.
I think it’s unfair to say Tim Cook hasn’t had a hit. They started the watch line up, AirPods, the M series chips are some solid products and revenue streams. Also while he may not be a “visionary” I think he is done a mighty fine job of making AAPL one the best brands to exist.
The economic climate changed since the pandemic and the cards dealt now are a bit difficult compared to the low 0% interest rate times.
All I’m saying is, I disagree with your opinion by adding my two cents, but to each their own :)
Yeah, admittedly Tim Cook is a stretch. He’s no Steve Jobs, but I don’t think trying to replace him would work either. Ultimately, the only role he can play is the one he’s dealt, but given that they’re also one of the biggest companies on the planet Apple haven’t really “innovated” anywhere. They’re also guilty of missing the ball on AI, especially with Siri essentially becoming the third-place voice assistant.
I’m not so sure I agree with the economic reaction in tech, but I am biased in that I work for one of these companies, and have a first-hand view in how these companies are cutting jobs while making insane profits, and demanding innovation with fewer resources than ever. My point around the pandemic is less to do with the change of CEO’s, and more to do with the climate highlighting that in a pinch, these CEO’s have done a poor job. I could go on for hours about this, but they praise themselves for the work their companies do, while admitting that they over-hired, and wasted huge sums of money in industries that aren’t ever going to generate profits. Google is burning huge sums of money on LLM’s, Amazon have spent enough money on MGM and ROP to effectively keep every laid-off employee employed on full-pay for a full year, Zuck has also bet big on AI despite burning cash on VR/AR. To some degree, all big tech companies have been poorly run by “safe” bets at the helm.
I agree. It’s time Sundar hits retirement and they put someone more visionary at the top.
Google has become seriously stale.
I was just remembering how back in 2010 on my iPhone 4S I could receive a text message while driving and tell Siri to read it to me, with no internet connection. And it would, and I could reply by Siri as well
But my current Android phone (I love Android it’s really great overall) cannot do that if I don’t have an internet connection!
Why??? Why haven’t they baked certain basic offline capabilities into Assistant and only need internet for search queries? Makes no sense but it’s one of those small indicators that Sundar is not paying attention.
And I swear to god, when they released the pixel 6, they said Assistant could do things much faster and without an Internet connection because all the processing for certain tasks (like language recognition, timers and sending messages) was all done on-board.
What the hell happened to that? Assistant has felt slower than ever for everything and more unhelpful every day
I can offer some insight. A friend of mine recently switched to the new one plus and he’s finding all sorts of little things he misses from his pixel 6 pro. The background music discovery was one, as was the camera processing stuff.
Because they use every reason to bring you online asap. Only then they can get as much data as they want. For example your location, no matter if via GPS or nearby Wifis.
Lol being the top boss is not easy when you’re a Technical guy. He comes from a technical background hence the sweat. I can relate but these top jobs are best suited for guys from sales coz they know how to talk and play with words.
Google and apple are not same company. Sundar and Steve don’t have the same technical background. Steve bootstrapped the company and scaled it , Sundar was given the CEO role of an established company.
There’s more but I’d suggest you to read and learn and try to become a wise man.
I'm an Apple user, for the most part, and I've noticed lately that in the last 6-12 months Google Maps has deteriorated significantly for me while Apple Maps has gotten better and better. Even things you'd think would be similar, e.g. satellite imagery, for my area Google's imagery is now a half-decade out of date while Apple's is current.
It really does feel like most of Google's consumer-facing products are languishing.
It’s now actively bloating a map with random businesses, making it difficult to use. And worse, it’s obscuring random businesses from search. I noticed it a while back if I googled “Chinese food”, a few places aren’t showing unless I zoom in really really close. And these are places with 100+ reviews.
Five years ago, I would have said, “Nah, they can throw money at it and make it better. So we should stay.”
But now, Google has a massive history of giving up and killing products. Devs and open source are making comparable alternatives. The general public is turning on even Google Search. And even my own job is considering Google alternatives.
The next five years are going to be anybody’s game.
Using Google products is starting to feel like watching season 1 of a Netflix produced show - I don’t want to invest energy into something that’ll just get cancelled.
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