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Comment by petesergeant | Hacker News Reader

Other than people who worked there, and miss the old days … who cares?

Google has transitioned into a mature tech company, which basically means they’re just an investment vehicle now managing assets. They’ll buy the innovation they need, but otherwise management’s job is to predictably manage share prices and profit.

The nostalgia is nice for people who worked there, but the maturity of the business being presented as decline rather than natural transition is weird.

It’s time for smaller, scrappier tech companies to be the place where the innovation happens.

It feels like people complaining about gentrification of happening neighbourhoods. The yuppies or shareholders move in, and the neighbourhood transitions, meanwhile smaller, harder to get to, edgier places are taking their place

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Google is a bit like Microsoft under Steve Ballmer. It had lost its way. There was no leadership. Most of what they tried failed or wasn't that great. And yet it was still raking in the profits. And then MS turned it around. All it took was new leadership. They just overtook Apple as the most valuable company in the world. Just a string of good, solid decisive leadership. Satya Nadella turned that company around.

Could happen to Google as well. But not with their current CEO. They have a lot of stuff that they are working on but very little of it has any real impact on their revenue. Their strategy is a mess. And they have a huge expensive work force not delivering more revenue to justify their existence. And they've been hiring non stop for 20 years just mindlessly growing their staff adding tens of thousands of people per year. The Google that built the company was much smaller and nimbler. The layoffs slow down the bloat but it's still a bloated company. The reason they get away with that is that revenue hasn't stopped growing either. But it's increasingly detached from staff size. Staff reductions at this point merely increase profits.

Absolutely they need a leader to turn it around, but Apple and Microsoft don’t feel like Google did: it’s still going to be a mature tech giant, run by spreadsheets, even if they can start producing some cool stuff again

As much hate Microsoft gets these days they are doing a great job recovering from Ballmer. Satya's moonshot investment in OpenAI is probably going to be what cements them a place in the future despite Windows' mindshare eroding and Azure providing lukewarm service.

If historic Broadway theaters in NYC transitioned to blocks of server farms, then many people would have a feeling, "Singing and dancing and live art used to happen here, and that history is worth continuing, here," even if for economic reasons it wouldn't and couldn't anymore. . . and so I don't think it's only wistful or wishfulness speaking.

It's positive to believe that places where creativity happened and was on display and at least nominally prized were places that need to continue in some form or fashion. I agree with you that the form and fashion may just be less visible now to these people wherever it has moved on to, now.

> If historic Broadway theaters in NYC transitioned ...

We should get a "Landmarks Preservation Commission" for corporate cultures.

> It's time for smaller, scrappier tech companies to be the place where innovation happens

I think this is exactly what is being lamented. There was interesting stuff happening for a really long time, and now there isn't. And companies that stop innovating tend to die long, slow deaths. It sounds like Google held out longer than most, but now runs the risk of going the way of the dodo. I'd lament that too.

> and now there isn’t

… at Google. Which comes back to my point that why should anyone except Google ex employees care if it’s happening there or somewhere else?

To dissuade potential employees who are thinking to apply because they mistakenly think it's still like the stories they hear from the old days?

To provide inside to employees in other companies which are undergoing a similar transition, so they can get insight about the transition they are experiencing?

> Other than people who worked there, and miss the old days … who cares?

So you’re not a Googler? Or a Xoogler? Maybe you identify as a Noogler (never-Googler)?

Noogler - new googler. not “never googler”.

When you can’t parody reality because it just outdoes your efforts.

My eyes are frequently googly

> they’re just an investment vehicle now managing assets.

or abusing monopoly and network effect.

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