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Comment by ralph84 | Hacker News Reader

How does Sundar Pichai still have a job? Isn’t he ultimately accountable for turning Google’s state of the art AI research into multiple bungled attempts at commercialization?

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He's been absolutely useless, and everything relating to AI under his watch this last year has been disastrous. This is all way over his head, he doesn't have either the knowledge, the charisma or spirit to move things forward. They should show him the door before any other major embarrassment.

Investors are reading balance sheets, not HN comments. Look at Google's stock price since Pichai took over and you will understand how he still has a job.

People said the same about Steve Ballmer.

And look at how much MS has changed since they got an innovative CEO in his place.

Hopefully Sundar is shown the door and the reins are given to someone else actually willing to innovate. And the share price will skyrocket like it has with MS.

MSFT when Ballmer became CEO in 2000 – $40

MSFT when Ballmer was replaced in 2014 – $40

GOOG when Sundar became CEO in 2015 – $30

GOOG today – $137

The situations aren't exactly comparable.

MSFT today: $373. Yeah I would say 10x growth vs 4x isn’t comparable.

The point of the comparison was to compare the stock growth during the tenures of the two CEOs in question. Steve Ballmer ceased to be CEO in 2014.

They dont really have a signal as well. The stock price could be due to external reasons like growth of mobile, growth of internet etc. These are the products that Google had always had. MSFT under Satya otoh launched a major initiative into the cloud and delivered growing revenue yoy.

What a terrible comparison. Both companies went through a stock split while they were CEOs.

All stock apps account for splits.

The post I am commenting on is NOT accounting for a stock split.

Google has underperformed all of big tech except Meta since he took over.

Put another way – Google is only the third best performing company in the world just not the first or second.

You can debate the definition of big tech, but among the companies Google has underperformed in the Pichai era are Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, Tesla, TSMC, Broadcom, Adobe, AMD, and Netflix.

The big tech companies are not playing the same game as other companies in the world.

It seems reasonable to hold them to a higher standard if you think they have more potential.

With the resources available at that level the only limiting factors seem to be leadership and what's actually possible. So I think it's fair to hold them to a high standard.

You can say that with no leadership and just keep working on ads they would maybe have even more revenue

Well, he's certainly not being held accountable.

Not just AI either. Nothing launched under his tenure has survived. The business hasn’t diversified.

Google under an unimaginative McKinsey suit is the epitome of burn money and accomplish nothing.

He worked at McKinsey before 2004 and only for a short time. Consulting must be the hardest sin to forgive in the tech world :)

Anyone notices how Amazon is taking baby steps with Luma? The gaming service?

Reminds me of the 4k@60fps Stadia with cloud connected controller etc.

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