Google wins everything (part 1)
blog.launch.co
blog.launch.co
I'm clearing my posts from G+ and largely using it as a glorified Twitter. May nuke it altogether. My trust in the company is now zilch for precisely the reasons you state.
a) they're pretty clear on how recovery numbers are used1[1], so honestly, I'm somewhat skeptical of your claim, but regardless:
b) you can easily change that setting, and no you don't need a g+ account. I found it in like 30 seconds. Just go to your account settings[2] and click the box with your phone number on it. The option is right there. In fact, the help page even explicitly mentions this is independent of any Google+ use of your phone number[3].
[1] https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/183728?hl=en&ref_...
B) the option is NOT there if you do not have a google plus account. Do you need me to screenshot it? If you see the word "hangout" near the mobile number you have google plus account. I had one option, remove recovery number. There was no opt-out "help others find me" tick. Didn't exist. I have no "hangout" settings. Somehow my google account must be in some kind of limbo where I'm not actually using other google services.
Your only option was to purge the number from account recovery, which I have done. My name and "YouTube" picture still appear on android handsets without an explicit contact. It's probably cached like that iPhone to android iMessage case recently.
As for your name and number showing up, to double check the obvious make sure the handset you tested on wasn't sync'd to Google allowing it to auto-populate the automated on-Device "Me" contact entry with your pic. If it was someone else's Google account synced phone, they have you in a Google Contacts entry w/ an email address, since that would pull in your pic and make it accessible to the dialer. That's their prerogative, not yours.
It was not my phone, it was a friends who had started from a fresh android 4.4 install. There was no google contact sync. Even if the contact sync was in place, it would be unlikely that the other party would have used my 5 year old YouTube avatar and populated it with both my email and phone number and full name. If my contact on his google side was populated from my gmail; as I have emailed the other party before, it shouldn't contain my phone number either - unless google matched it and shared.
Something went wrong. I think my account is an edge case and I was opted into a service (you are dickheads. Opt out is always evil.) and because I had not consumed enough other services my account was not given the option to opt out. Point remains, google matched my recovery number with my profile, which they said they wouldn't. I can't see any other explanation.
I'll repeat my alternate explanation more concretely: the name and the Youtube pic was auto-synced via @GMail, and your friend just manually added your phone number to it. It's now permanently in his Gmail account as part of Google Contacts, independent of anything done on Google's part.
Get your friend to delete his contact of you from the address book ("People") and see if it occurs again.
Really? Because I'm less than impressed with what Google has done lately: Wave, G+, etc.
2. No company is as ambitious as Google. 3. No company is working on as many hard problems as Google. 4. No company makes as many big bets as Google. 10. Only one CEO is more ambitious than Google’s Larry Page.
There are hundreds of startups working on hard problems, making big bets and which are shamelessly ambitious. The company that will make Google irrelevant may not exist yet, but if it does, you haven't heard of it.
6. No company has more data than Google.
That's a silly point. My startup works with big data and it's all about making it useful. Having lots of data in-and-of-itself is not as huge a win as it seems. It's raining data right now.
9. No company is as ruthlessly efficient as Google.
Except every two-person startup in existence, anywhere.
However, with regards to point 9, I feel it worth pointing out that Calacanis was clearly talking about the efficiency of Google in the context of companies with the (man/brain/political/financial) power to drive social and technological change on a global scale.
By their very nature, 2 person startups are far more efficient per employee than any large corporation. The per employee bit is important however.
Small startups are wondrous things, given to us by people who are crazy and brave in equal measure. They are almost unquestionably the best means of catalysing change that I can think of - they're also going to have a really tough time driving change, which is one of the many reasons why such companies inevitably grow.
Side note: I find that some on Hacker News are often so enamoured with the startup culture (obviously, considering the basis for the community) that large corporations end up getting demonized by contrast. People forget that the two cultures are not mutually exclusive.
Google acquires startups/established companies on weekly basis. Their workforce increases by hundreds every week. A recent one I can recall was Boston Dynamics. Not even a two person startup. Google's main revenue stream only goes up. I see no slowing down of this machine.
I work for a highly acquisitive company and while we're no Google, I can tell you, as often as not the whole thing is a damn mess which does little but drive staff turnover. The theoretical synergies are great but for the most part they're very hard to realise and the hard work starts with the purchase rather than ends with it.
The occasional crazy / interesting acquisition I think is a good sign but I'm not sure that it's a list you want to be top of.
No ruthless per se, but their technology stack and internal developer tools are really good. A small startup lacks this, as well as the ability to easily run very large computations.
https://plus.google.com/+AlexSchleber/posts/boFYJq7yKDd
Specifically:
Re point 1: But they are (self-)selected smart by Google's hiring processes to skew in a particular engineering direction that CAN make them "dumb" (=less smart) in more social, humanistic, and philosophical terms...
Gunther Sonnenfeld makes the point that I've been making for a year or so now: that Google's real competition is Amazon:
This isn't really about digital rights fiefdoms and the ability to sell ads, but the distribution of products, services and data that keep customers realistically 'engaged'. Amazon has the entire ecosystem in play ... In short, Amazon doesn't need ads or impressions, and in fact, it will completely reinvent the standards for performance, reach and engagement by doing so.
Amazon itself is disruptable if someone can figure out how to get brick-and-mortar stores' inventories and order systems integrated. The last-mile / delivery problem is still Amazon's weak point, and if I can deal with merchandise issues in person at a local storefront (with competent service), but handle ordering and information online, I'd do it (and in fact, often do).
I see security, privacy, tracking, and trust being Google's biggest weak points, along with hubris. The fact that I've all but abandoned it for Search (but Google Scholar and the Google Books Ngram viewer are awesome), and am starting to switch to OpenStreetMap, suggests that Google's foundations can be carved out from under it.
Remember, IBM, Xerox, and AT&T were unassailable behemoths in the 1970s / 1980s (well, prior to 1984 in the case of AT&T). Or Microsoft for the 1990s.
I think on HN we could and should go further in the "no-limit" thoughts, even if as a simple exercise.
For example, I always wondered why would Google need to make money. In some weird views, we could think the maybe it already have enough money to be self-sustainable, in financial orbit. Maybe they could put all the money they have in some low risk investment and use the annuity to paid engineers and researchers. They sure could cut a lot of expenses on PR and office prettifying.
Then a Google that was not required to make money anymore would really become something. It could provide every human with free internet without relying on forced data mining. It could pay researcher to produce open whitepapers on topics of their own interests.
This would working be a little bit like Universities in the middle-age or renaissance: having some funds, hosting interesting people, being a center for innovation, etc.
I do not think this is pure utopy, or to say it otherwise: only a massive ship like Google could carry such an utopian experiment.
If anything will get us to the moon it's not piles of cash, it's a solid business strategy. I certainly hope Google will find one for glass, their self-driving cars, and other cool hardware projects, but a quick look around all the car manufacturers suggests that Google may once again miss the boat.
The car manufacturers are working on self-driving only on highways, which is nothing compared to general self-driving. I don't know for certain, but I think it's fairly safe to say that the car companies don't have the CS muscle to do proper general self driving.
Even on digital goods Amazon dos better than Google's content shops, with the exception of apps.
Retail as a concept feels boring, but what Amazon does has real practical effects on everyday life, and they are pushing the boundaries further and further where no company cared to go until now.
Thinking that on top of all of this their business model is actually sane, I'd root for Amazon any day (except for how they treat warehouse employees, but that would be another topic)
PS: An anecdote: after an heavy earthquake, when everyone is busy hording food and water supply from brick and mortar chains, amazon was still delivering anything including emergency goods anywhere accessible at day+1 delivery. It was mind blowing.
I have had only one major consulting client in the last 5 years who has not at least partially used AWS, and that was Google :-)
As much as I distrust Google, the people working there seem happy. Not so sure I can say that of Amazon.
If I get the replacement parts for my vacuum cleaner for tomorrow, I won't get in a car or any transportation mechanism to get it to some store. As a side effect, your traffic accident number is down (less individual people driving) and the system efficiency is also up (efficient vehicles moving the goods).[]
What amazon does goes toward the goal you state. It does it in a small way, but it's here today, you can use it now, and it should continue doing it better and better everyday.
Google's self driving car might reach your goal to some point in some distant future. If infrastructure gets a lot better. And legislation problem get solve. And Google is still around by then. Is it so much better ?
[] BTW, You'll still have drunk people, but this problem might as well be solved by other means than self-driving cars.
Self-driving cars could be a part of that. But small in the bigger picture.
Ask any broad who's been around the block a few times about guys selling her the moon and the stars. Pan Am was selling tickets to the moon in the 1960s. Didn't work out so great when they failed at retail and went bankrupt.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/06/ticket-to-space/
http://articles.latimes.com/1991-01-09/news/mn-7223_1_fuel-c...
Truth is: Google's an advertising company, and its biggest market is intentional users -- mostly search-driven, who are looking for something, often to buy and use its services.
Piss them off, freak them out, annoy them, or cut to the chase and offer the end-result directly and you've short-circuited their entire business model.
Same as Microsoft was terrified of either free operating systems (Linux) or applications which could run (on any OS) over a browser. And then they got blindsided by mobile. Sucks to be Microsoft today. Could well be Google in a few years.
I always wondered why would Google need to make money.
Um. That's kind of how this iteration of the majical economy game works. Businesses are scored on their ability to earn more in revenues than they spend on expenses. No business can keep operating indefinitely without profits, though some giants have functioned for years with losses (between running down cash, working through or selling off assets, and taking on debt).
Maybe they could put all the money they have in some low risk investment
That "low risk investment* is ultimately the rest of the economy (hint: US T Bills are supported by economic activity elsewhere for real gains). Which would mean that Google was losing ground relative to same. Unless Google were able to, say, come up with a perpetual / unlimited energy supply or something like it, they'll need money. Or they manage to utterly change the rules of how the economy works, in ways which would make Marx proud.
I do not think this is pure utopy
Stop thinking. It is.
Google founders should not really need more money than what they already have, and therefore could have another set out goals in life than making more money...
I hear you. Believe me I do.
However that's the system we've got.
You've got at least three problems that I can see:
• Figure out what you want to replace it with.
• Figure out how to get there from here.
• Figure out how to sell it.
Many have tried.
Google founders should not really need more money than what they already have
We're not talking about the founders, we're talking about the company.
As of December 31, 2013, the company had $87,309 million in total equity -- value less liabilities. Its operating expenses for the three months ending December 31, 2013, were $12,936 million. Without income, Google would be broke in six quarters.
You can't run a company without income.
https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AGOOG&fstype=ii&ei=...
And in the event you're thinking this is just money: money represents a lien on real resources. Those financial stocks and flows correspond to resources Google can access or must use on an ongoing basis. The additional projects it does engage in are possible because its revenues are that much higher above its expenses.
What you're talking about would require that Google find some other way of keeping the power on and encouraging people to show up to the office every day, without money changing hands, in a fashion which retains some semblance of economic efficiency.
What are you proposing, exactly?
Google probably could have been this way but right now it's too late I guess.
The vast majority (80%+) of the rest of the stock is held by institutional investors who want one of two things: (1) capital growth (that is the share price to go up) and (2) dividends (that is for them to be given money for owning the stock).
There is no room for Google as some non-business utopia, it's a corporation with a responsibility to shareholders. So long as Larry and Sergey keep delivering a return they'll be allowed to keep doing what they want but the minute they're not seen as doing that they'll be replaced.
Here in the UK, we have Argos, which is just that. Every city and large town has an Argos in the city centre, with a warehouse attached. You can order online, and either pick your items up at the store or have them delivered. They even have a 90 minute delivery option.
Unfortunately, it's been in a massive decline in recent years. Warehouse space in the middle of cities turns out to be expensive, and Amazon's been carving out a massive chunk of their market.
What the Web offers is a way to remove the distance and friction between people and product information: specs and reviews, despite the limitations of both. I've found that numerous stores are pretty good about talking me through what I'm looking to buy, and, if they don't have it in stock, ordering it for pick-up. Often within a day or so. What the store offers is existing relationships with manufacturers and distributors, as well as, well, a storefront in which I can walk in and collect the purchase when I choose to. Additionally, I've got a choice of payment methods, including cash, most of which avoid the various risks of fraud (to both the shopper and merchant) associated with online payments.
There are few cases in which the option of "look up information online, place order through local merchant, be notified of availability, transact payment and pick up product" fails to work for me. For large or bulk purchases, arranging for delivery if necessary.
Better: if on examination the product isn't what I was looking for, or fails to meet expectations, the merchant has a far easier time arranging returns (including, as noted, an existing relationship with the manufacturer / warehouser) than I as an individual have.
Side note: Edward Bellamy's socialist utopia Looking Backward, written in 1887 about the year 2000, is a fascinating read. Some of its predictions are wide of the mark, but what I found particularly accurate, though his description was of an essentially socialist emporium, was his description of shopping. It's almost a perfect capture of the shopping mall experience, minus the advertising, down to the utterly ignorant and useless sales staff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Backward
Unfortunately it doesn't discuss any of the follow-up topics mentioned at the end of part 1.
In explaining how they're blowing it he's really talking about something which seems to me at least, is fundamental to Google's culture. They've never really done support, or consultation, or partners, they've never cared about other people's issues when they kill a popular service, in short they don't really care what others think.
That's given them a fantastic focus and means that theydon't get paralyzed by indecision or trying to keep everyone happy, but if that changes (and I really think it won't, I honestly think they don't care in that way) what else would changes with it and how would it impact them?
Part 2 is (a part of) the answer to his questions in part 1 - why Google will win everything. They'll be wildy successful, yes, but the way they operate will always leave areas where others will be able to be more appealing, at least for some consumers.
As long as they can make enough to retain their top talent, I can see them ultimately winning in the long-term, ending up with more reach and impact than anyone else.
I only see Apple as their biggest competition in the consumer market with massive resources and talent laser-focused on creating what many consumers want: beautifully simple and powerful UX's.
#13 - No Company consistently fails to monetize extremely popular services and instead shuts them down as much as Google.
Watch: FLYING BREAD MACHINES
Where's my kudos?
Anyone can 'work' on interesting, crowd leasers like life extension and internet for all, but until they do something they're essentially just jacking off. And we're footing the bill (well, advertisers are - silver lining...)
I saw stack ranking, closed allocation, and mediocrity. There were some extremely smart people, but the corporate culture was a bit sleepy and resigned, and that was because of its closed-allocation regime. You get effective open allocation, quick promotions, and good management if Google decides you matter, but it's not likely to play that way unless you start in the right place.
Google is still very impressive for its size, and if it went for open allocation, it would probably reach a trillion-dollar market cap in 4-6 years. It could win in a major way. Whether it will is unclear. It has the potential, for certain.