And it will be slightly changed in another couple of years by some new VP who wants to shake things up and get that next promotion.
Anything them there MBA-types do is bullshit, am I right? In fact, I have no idea why Google doesn't run from the command line only!
I'm sure glad to have HN around to tell me how most of the machinations of a large global corporation are pointless.
By the way, do you have one shred of evidence that this was a VP looking to get promoted?
You refute that the old logo didn't scale down to smaller screens well? Getting the logo visible across mobile devices was a major part of the redesign. If your job is logos and branding, that seems like a real problem. And branding does affect a company's outcome, certainly more than "one iota". You are acting like a terrible cynic and troll.
Ah, but it will. When you're a company like Google, with hundreds of millions of users a day, it's only a matter of time that something like an outdated logo will start to lose you customers. People make sub-conscious inferences about your product based on appearance. If you start looking like that thing everyone used to use, they'll start looking for alternatives.
This redesign was for Google executives, not Google users.
My personal process for using Google (not saying everyone is the same, but...) goes something like this:
1. Type "g" into the address bar
2. Press enter, because www.google.com auto-populates at that point
3. Start typing my query while the animation of the day is loading
4. Press enter
5. Review the results
Petty? Yes. Did it effect their market share? By at least 1 - yes.
I highly doubt I was the only one to act like that. Design matters. Even if you don't think it does.
E:
For those wondering, I also didn't enjoy listening to Panic! At the Disco. They also eventually dropped the !.