Comment by chubot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chubot | Hacker News Reader

What's also incredible about early Google is how FAST the company created unique technology that led to decades-long profits.

The company IPO'd in August 2004, less than 6 years after it was founded. I think the market cap was around $20 B then, and now it's in the trillions.

I don't think any other company since has done it that fast -- Stripe, Uber, AirBNB, Dropbox, etc.

Compare Facebook, a company that also grew quickly. It was founded in 2004 and IPO'd in 2012, so more like 8 years.

And not just IPO'd, but created BOTH interesting tech and product. Back in those days I loved using Google -- it's a shame that most people don't remember that, and don't have the chance to experience it.

People would say the same things about Google that they say today about generative AI -- I remember an acquaintance wrote a blog post "Is Google God?"

Also, if you compare OpenAI, they're about ~8 years in now, and obviously have done more than 99.9% of organizations in 8 years. But they're also not fantastically profitable, and there's a big "research preview" disclaimer below their main product.

...

I joined Google less than 7 years in, right after the IPO, and it was already a smoothly running machine. It already had 3,000 employees and a bunch of offices, and good management.

I do think the IPO changed the company permanently. There was a bunch of turnover around that time. I remember Wayne Rosing, the VP of engineering, left shortly after I joined. I maintained/rewrote tools written by early employees, and I'm sure they were all (rightfully) taking a victory lap, at least in their minds ...

Definitely sad to see the hollowing out of all that talent in the last ~10 years. I think the founders just weren't prepared for how big it would become, and the company got beyond them.

Adobe had sky high growth back in the 80s. It was the first company out of SV that achieved profitability in less than a year (thanks to a sweetheart deal with Steve Jobs / Apple), however it did really well through the decade. Inflation adjusted, I think it'd hit similar numbers, though I think Google is still bigger by some margin.

Adobe today maybe not so much, but at one point they were a powerhouse

Oh yeah for sure, I can only imagine Adobe in its early days was just as exceptional as Microsoft or Apple back then.

I would have thought another Google would come along in the last 25 years, but weirdly/arguably it was Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft that out-competed them! (in mobile, e-commerce, and cloud)

Those companies are all older than Google!

And there's definitely a timing issue play. The market in the early 80's was "ripe" for the PC boom and Apple, and the market was ripe for desktop publishing and Adobe.

The Internet was likewise "ripe" in the early 2000's.

It feels like the last 10 years have been full of grasping at straws for the next big thing:

- google glass was definitely a "jump the shark" moment

- VR / metaverse seems to be "forced"

- there was a bunch of hype around 3D printing for consumers, rather than for industrial use

- In 2023, self-driving cars have achieved 1% or less of what people thought they would in 2013 or 2016

- crypto and NFTs also feel "forced". Bitcoin is 15 years old now. Whatever you think of it, it's not like the PC era or the Internet era. 15 years in, those were way more impactful.

- I mentioned generative AI above -- it's interesting, but it also has big question marks in terms of BOTH the product and business. Google had neither of those. It's also 11 years in to deep learning.

Of course, this could be just an old guy talking ... and probably missing a lot of what's useful and new. But it does seem like Google was singular -- both the right thing, and the right time. I'm sad to see how bad the products have gotten and how disappointed people are in the brand

Even a relatively large 3,000 person company is much different from a much larger company and especially if you've dome well financially it's pretty natural to either leave or just coast for a bit. And depending upon where you are you maybe don't want to take a new job but just take your pay for a while.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com