I find the absurdly insensitive and abrupt handling of formerly prized employees astounding. What a condemnation of Google's management—of Sundar Pichai because this is at his feet, on his head, at his behest. Seriously—US$305 billion in revenue, US$73 billion in net income, but you can't find the means to treat people decently?
This is on you Sundar.
Here's the other sad thing: Google's gone. The interesting, exciting place that did bleeding-edge technology has silently dissolved before our very eyes. The infinite spigot of ad money turned out to be finite, and there's no more growth left. Now, Google is squeezing costs, not seeking growth.
It's understandable- they aren't the only ones. The hyperscalers, the MAANGs, the Big Tech companies have run out of customers. Meta, Netflix, Apple, Google have all the customers. Congratulations! You own the world!
I joke to people that at Google, you could come up with a billion-dollar product, and the reaction would be: "Great, but could you get serious? Ads will add 15 times that every quarter in growth—a billion dollars means nothing."
But it's so sad. OpenAI exists because of Google's foundational work. MapReduce, BigTable (NoSql)- most of cluster computing!- TensorFlow, Angular, and Protocol Buffers- big, amazing, interesting, ground swell technologies.
(And how many of these technologies did Google capitalise on?)
I just don't believe Google is going to create these technologies anymore. Angry, scared, lowest-cost employees aren't well-positioned to be inventive. Oh, don't get me wrong—there are still plenty of amazing people and momentum, but the flywheel has been slowing for a long time now—flinging off people with great energy. We'll still see some innovation trickle out, but the big disruptive stuff?
I don't think so.
The industry will be better for it. The exodus of talent from Google, Amazon, and everywhere else will help drive the industry- we can already see it.
But I'm still sad. What an inglorious end.
RIP Google.