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Comment by cerebra | Hacker News Reader

This...doesn't seem like a good idea.

Not to be dramatic, but from a security perspective, it feels a little like the scene in Ghost Busters where the EPA inspector orders a Con Ed worker to shut down the containment system.

I'm trying to imagine all the operational implications and this particular suggestion feels hasty.

I'm open to hearing different opinions.

Buying the browser should come with most of the engineers that actively work on it, or at least the ones with most experience working on it, maybe even give them a tiny part of the shares of whatever company gets to own it, or perhaps with a contract for at least for a couple of years (and then could return to Google or whatever), and if possible include some incentives to make them focus on working on security bugs over new features, which tbh I think there is just too many every year.

> Buying the browser should come with most of the engineers that actively work on it

The 13th Amendment to the US constitution makes the sale of people illegal.

Seriously though - how would this ever work? Google cannot negociate on behalf of their employees or promise they will work somewhere if Google stops employing them.

Companies regularly buy and sell parts of themselves. I think the standard approach would be for Chrome employees to be given golden handcuffs of some sort.

I don't like it either, but it doesn't seem unprecedented. Companies sell units to each other (complete with staff) all the time.

I'm pretty sure everyone who worked at Universal Studios still worked there after Comcast bought them. I don't recall any staff being included when Google sold Domains to Squarespace, but they very well could have been.

Hell, if you've ever temped in tech, sometimes you wake up and find out you work for a different agency. "Yesterday you worked at Magnit. Today you work at TechPro."

Or it could be something in between - the buyer offers you a new contract and the seller says you'll be laid off if you don't take it.

> Google cannot negociate on behalf of their employees or promise they will work somewhere if Google stops employing them

Of course they can. Read your employment contract. It almost certainly can be assigned.

I can promise someone that you will give me $100 too. But it doesn't create obligations on your end.

My employment contract says nothing about me needing to work at any company that Google decides I should work for.

> My employment contract says nothing about me needing to work at any company that Google decides I should work for

It probably also lets you quit with short notice.

Being owner of even a tiny bit of a brand new company that owns Chrome would be very attractive to engineers already working on Chrome, and it wouldn't be wise for any parent company to piss them off as they know the software better than anyone.

The revenue and profitability of "the Chrome Company" is going to be far less than Google, since Google's rising tide is what lifted that particular boat.

How would the Chrome Company deal with this?

Would they do closed source development going forward, no more free lunch for other browsers or shells using Chrome as an engine?

How much of a hit does this mean for employees salaries? They are currently making Google money, and now they're about to make Microsoft money.

How many would just be flat out laid off due to a lack of revenue, at least in the short term? Would it be a 50% lay off? Into a job market that's already bad?

Firefox makes hundred of millions of dollars in revenue per year. If you assume the same revenue per user and apply it to Chrome's market size (about 30x that of firefox) then you have a top 20(?) tech company in revenue terms.

They will have more money than they know what to do with. But yes, going closed source does seem more likely.

Isn't firefox mostly making its money from Google? They'll be struggling too if Google gets out of the browser business and no longer feels the pressure to sustain them

Google doesn't fund Mozilla because it is in the browser market, it does it so it can keep the search engine dominance.

Google also pays Apple for the same reason.

Now it would probably be paying the Chrome company as well.

Why would it be a bad idea?

Yeah, especially if this breaks Chrome Remote Desktop in any way, seems like that capability would be tied into the Google ecosystem... I wonder how long we will have to say goodbye to the simplest remote desktop that has ever existed.

If getting more open protocols/APIs for that kind of thing is a consequence of this then I’ll take it.

Next please make Apple open up all the secret integration between iOS and Watch so that Fitbit and others can more fairly compete.

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