Larry Page: If we can't win on quality, we shouldn't win at all.
online.wsj.com
online.wsj.com
it's actually the book about google i was waiting for. it's a book from an (ex) googler (no, i won't call them xoogerls) about google. it tells the story about the chaotic start up days, about their victories and their failures (and yes, there were failures), about the time when marketing had to "volunteer" to rewire servers, how brand and engineers fought about UX only to be overruled by sergy, how frustrating it can be to work with genius developers.
it is way better than "in the plex" (which is just "myth making" with little substance), much much better than all the "what would google do" like books, and much better than all SEO books (which are all sh#t anyway ... exception "search engine marketing incorporated")
well i'm on page 220 and there was not much about SEO yet. matt cutts and his p#rn cookies were mentioned, his fight against spam. there is a short story about "search for non PhD" which explains search engines pretty well (and holds more valuable information than you can get from an average SEO).
it also settles the question once and for all "does google uses the data from the google toolbar?" (the answer is: YES, and the green page rank bar (i call it "thought cancer bar") is indeed just a bait to turn on the "advanced features"). nothing new, but this time it's official (kind of). i hope that all the SEOs which claim that "it's not important what the users do after the SERP clickthrough" will finally be silenced.
@matt looking forward to your book...
Digital pricing for books is really starting to get to me. It makes absolutely no sense why a digital version can cost nearly as much (and sometimes more) than a physical copy.
I don't mean to sound like a pg fanboy, but it sounds like he really liked it
This slogan handily summarizes the history of the computer industry, software and hardware.
When a little guy with no resources comes up with a brilliant idea he would try to implement it, the big guys would see it and use their near infinite resources to copy it while adding features and you would be cheering for them?
We need to fix intellectual property, not scrap it.
No, I'm not for "expanding", I'm for fixing. The idea of patents was to give the little guy a chance to compete with the bigger players. It has been corrupted into being the exact opposite. I would like a solution to be found that accomplishes the original goal. And no, I don't know how to do it but I'm not convinced that it's impossible.
>if they are able to get an injunction and tie up the courts that would be pretty much the death sentence to any "little guy".
This strikes me as largely a US problem, not a fundamental one.
I think the court costs should really be a footnote in this line of discussion though; I think the amount of R&D that big companies do combined with the nature of software patents would make it impossible for any start up to avoid actually infringing on multiple patents.
So you could have some great idea for a startup that does something innovative in the social arena; that's not going to help you very much if some big company has patents on things like friend lists or settable profile photos are patented. I'm honestly don't even think that is a "big vs little" company issue; what if Google had patented search engine results weighted by links? What if Twitter had patented broadcast status updates when it was a start up?
Plus, the implementation should be covered by IP (but not the idea itself).
If a small guy invented the "one click buying" button, should it be protected?
Plus, in the end, we all win (if big company popularizes small guy's idea and it makes something better).
Not when big company has as many people as big company wants to work on the problem.
>If a small guy invented the "one click buying" button, should it be protected?
No, of course not. IP does need to be fixed, I said that.
>Plus, in the end, we all win (if big company popularizes small guy's idea and it makes something better).
No we don't. Most of us may get a slightly better version of something we want, but we would have anyway. And we will have stricken a blow to ones ability to become better off than we started out.
Personally I'm for a world where as many people as possible can become financially independent. I utterly despise anything that means that "wage slaves" have to remain such and big companies get even more powerful. $1 million would change the lives of many people on this site but google/apple/MS wouldn't even notice such a relatively small amount.
"I'm for a world where as many people as possible can become financially independent."
So am I, so am I. I'm just not sure how to implement it.
BTW, your first point reminds me of an article here on HN on how stuff works in China (and the clones of big US companies): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2449491
Lots of things are obvious in hindsight.
> Plus, the implementation should be covered by IP (but not the idea itself).
Huh? Are you suggesting copyright protection on the implementation is enough?
If not, what kind of IP protection on the implementation are you suggesting that isn't "idea" protection?
> Plus, in the end, we all win
I want the little guy trying to become big, because that's how things change. Letting the big guy win every time isn't nearly as good.
I do agree with protecting the implementation (which is what most countries do).
I'm not sure on how to give the "small guy" a head start without giving him some protection on the idea, but I have a strong opinion that protecting the idea is bad. (I could be wrong, and I'm open to being convinced).
Are you against protecting all ideas? If not, what kind of ideas do you think should be protectable and how?
For example, if I invent a new way to do scheduling - is that something that you're willing to let me protect? If so, how?
> I do agree with protecting the implementation (which is what most countries do).
What kind of protection are you talking about? Copyright? If so, that's useless against a legit big guy because they don't copy.
Even when there is an implementation, it's not obvious to me that it should be especially protected by a government (especially a fallible government, which is all of them, as well-meaning as they might be).
I'm definitely not in favor of granting you protection on a "new form of scheduling". A program or calendar or whatever that implements it, sure.
See for example:
http://www.lessig.org/content/standard/0,1902,4296,00.html
"Patent No. 5,715,314, for example, gives the holder a monopoly over "network-based sales systems" - we call that e-commerce." (yes, Amazon among others is a licensee)
Other horrible examples:
http://w2.eff.org/patent/EFF_Patent_Busting_Project.pdf
See also for a broader view, the ideas of economist Friedrich Hayek:
http://blog.mises.org/9247/hayek-on-patents-and-copyrights/
or, a mainstream view on an industry without copyright, the fashion industry:
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/20/copycats-versus-copyright...
Another well-known case is of course Coca-Cola, which protects its core formula via trade secret rather than relying on the government.
(I am in favor of copyright, and protecting implementations as well - a reduced form of patents).
As I mentioned, if it's not obvious, and the big guy requires resources to copy it, they might be better off purchasing the small guy. If it was easy to copy, well, let's hope the small guy's execution was better than big guy's. (I do realize that big guy has an advantage in marketing, etc.)
It's curious that you seen to think that patents can protect something other than ideas because ideas are the only things that patents protect.
> Even when there is an implementation, it's not obvious to me that it should be especially protected by a government (especially a fallible government, which is all of them, as well-meaning as they might be).
Then whom will enforce them? Do I hire a private army?
I assume that you feel the same about contracts and copyright (wrt enforcement).
> I'm definitely not in favor of granting you protection on a "new form of scheduling". A program or calendar or whatever that implements it, sure.
So, once someone sees my new form of scheduling, they can use it and there's nothing that I can do about it. (I wasn't thinking calendar scheduling, but it doesn't matter.)
In that world, I'm going to reveal as little as possible.
> If it was easy to copy
Small orgs innovate only when they benefit from doing so. Since the innovations come from small orgs, reducing their ability to benefit is a huge cost. I'm still waiting to see the benefit.
Note that there are bogus patents in chemistry and every other field, yet I don't see near the outrage. Is software special?
"What is a Patent?
A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention, which is a product or a process that provides, in general, a new way of doing something, or offers a new technical solution to a problem. In order to be patentable, the invention must fulfill certain conditions "
http://www.wipo.int/patentscope/en/patents_faq.html#patent
On your second point, I am in favor of government enforcement of contracts (as a last resort, hopefully), and copyright as well (though it should be amended or limited).
On your scheduling idea, yes, if the implementation is easy, then your only recourse is obscurity (trade secrets).
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/peertopatentblog/?tag=mathematical-met...
Scientific theory or discovery and mathematical methods are NOT patentable.
At Business School you learn that all sources of competitive advantage are temporary. BigCo will catch up with you eventually if you don't use your temporary advantage to build up.
You're reading "product" and "process" too literally. A patent on a new way of making a wheel is not just a patent on the wheels that you're making. It's on the way you make wheels, the idea, whether or not you're involved in said wheel making.
> Scientific theory or discovery and mathematical methods are NOT patentable.
Scheduling isn't any of the above, even if it happens to use some of them.
Consider the patent on making vulcanized rubber. It came out of scientific discovery and depends on chemical "laws", but isn't any of those things. It doesn't cover the use of those things to do other things. It just covers the use of those things to vulcanize rubber.
> At Business School you learn that all sources of competitive advantage are temporary.
Patronize much? Anything that applies to "all" isn't specifically relevant to this discussion, which is about specific sources of competitive advantage.
I'll repeat my question - do you really want to leave innovation to BigCos?
They may have more people to throw at things, but they will almost always prefer tactical over strategical, as all of the managerial chain is judged by quarterly profits.
Note how so much of large corporations' innovation is really just the purchase of small start-ups which can think strategically and focus on the right things.
Out of curiosity when has this happened in the startup world? I don't ever hear about anybody registering patents or fending off the big guys.
Also easily copy-able ideas can't really be that brilliant, can they? If Google can steal your idea and your customer base easily then that frees you up to work on something more difficult/important.
Since Apple's software was not compatible with the windows market, Apple had to build a culture of innovation. This innovation has served them well.
Google seeks to rip off apple's innovation with android (the multi-touch UI, etc.) and sun's innovation by copying java and "giving it away". A lot of people think this is "open" because it is "Free" and because google is open sourcing the code-- why not, they stole the technology in the first place. It doesn't matter that they clean-room duplicated it, they didn't have to incur the cost of discovering it.
The result is, predictably, a race to the bottom in quality and price for android handsets.
If you want to get rid of patents, ammend the constitution. What I don't hear much from anti-IP people is what they want to replace it with. Have you considered what things will look like when all this technology-- rather than being published openly for everyone to learn from and to use as a starting point for coming up with new things-- becomes a secret that is closely guarded?
It seems the anti-IP people want to be able to use other's innovations (Eg: Apple, Sun) but without having to pay the royalties for it that the patent system imposes--- and without also using these patents as a starting point to come up with something new.
If android had come up with something genuinely original, then the anti-IP perspective would be undermined by android starting with Apple's IP (Before coming up with something new.)
But since google just copied Apple, it sound to me like wanting something for nothing.