b555 Posted March 20, 2012 Posted March 20, 2012 Ok, I relent. Everyone wants to know why I left and answering individually isnÃÕ scaling so here it is, laid out in its long form. Read a little (I get to the punch line in the 3rd paragraph) or read it all. But a warning in advance: there is no drama here, no tell-all, no former colleagues bashed and nothing more than you couldnÃÕ already surmise from whatÃÔ happening in the press these days surrounding Google and its attitudes toward user privacy and software developers. This is simply a more personal telling. It wasnÃÕ an easy decision to leave Google. During my time there I became fairly passionate about the company. I keynoted four Google Developer Day events, two Google Test Automation Conferences and was a prolific contributor to the Google testing blog. Recruiters often asked me to help sell high priority candidates on the company. No one had to ask me twice to promote Google and no one was more surprised than me when I could no longer do so. In fact, my last three months working for Google was a whirlwind of desperation, trying in vain to get my passion back. The Google I was passionate about was a technology company that empowered its employees to innovate. The Google I left was an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus. Technically I suppose Google has always been an advertising company, but for the better part of the last three years, it didnÃÕ feel like one. Google was an ad company only in the sense that a good TV show is an ad company: having great content attracts advertisers. Under Eric Schmidt ads were always in the background. Google was run like an innovation factory, empowering employees to be entrepreneurial through founderÃÔ awards, peer bonuses and 20% time. Our advertising revenue gave us the headroom to think, innovate and create. Forums like App Engine, Google Labs and open source served as staging grounds for our inventions. The fact that all this was paid for by a cash machine stuffed full of advertising loot was lost on most of us. Maybe the engineers who actually worked on ads felt it, but the rest of us were convinced that Google was a technology company first and foremost; a company that hired smart people and placed a big bet on their ability to innovate. From this innovation machine came strategically important products like Gmail and Chrome, products that were the result of entrepreneurship at the lowest levels of the company. Of course, such runaway innovative spirit creates some duds, and Google has had their share of those, but Google has always known how to fail fast and learn from it. In such an environment you donÃÕ have to be part of some executiveÃÔ inner circle to succeed. You donÃÕ have to get lucky and land on a sexy project to have a great career. Anyone with ideas or the skills to contribute could get involved. I had any number of opportunities to leave Google during this period, but it was hard to imagine a better place to work. But that was then, as the saying goes, and this is now. It turns out that there was one place where the Google innovation machine faltered and that one place mattered a lot: competing with Facebook. Informal efforts produced a couple of antisocial dogs in Wave and Buzz. Orkut never caught on outside Brazil. Like the proverbial hare confident enough in its lead to risk a brief nap, Google awoke from its social dreaming to find its front runner status in ads threatened. Google could still put ads in front of more people than Facebook, but Facebook knows so much more about those people. Advertisers and publishers cherish this kind of personal information, so much so that they are willing to put the Facebook brand before their own. Exhibit A: www.facebook.com/nike, a company with the power and clout of Nike putting their own brand after FacebookÃÔ? No company has ever done that for Google and Google took it personally. Larry Page himself assumed command to right this wrong. Social became state-owned, a corporate mandate called Google+. It was an ominous name invoking the feeling that Google alone wasnÃÕ enough. Search had to be social. Android had to be social. You Tube, once joyous in their independence, had to be well, you get the point. Even worse was that innovation had to be social. Ideas that failed to put Google+ at the center of the universe were a distraction. Suddenly, 20% meant half-assed. Google Labs was shut down. App Engine fees were raised. APIs that had been free for years were deprecated or provided for a fee. As the trappings of entrepreneurship were dismantled, derisive talk of the Ã…Ãld Google and its feeble attempts at competing with Facebook surfaced to justify a Ã…Ãew Google that promised Ã…ÃŽore wood behind fewer arrows. The days of old Google hiring smart people and empowering them to invent the future was gone. The new Google knew beyond doubt what the future should look like. Employees had gotten it wrong and corporate intervention would set it right again. Officially, Google declared that ÅÔharing is broken on the web and nothing but the full force of our collective minds around Google+ could fix it. You have to admire a company willing to sacrifice sacred cows and rally its talent behind a threat to its business. Had Google been right, the effort would have been heroic and clearly many of us wanted to be part of that outcome. I bought into it. I worked on Google+ as a development director and shipped a bunch of code. But the world never changed; sharing never changed. ItÃÔ arguable that we made Facebook better, but all I had to show for it was higher review scores. As it turned out, sharing was not broken. Sharing was working fine and dandy, Google just wasnÃÕ part of it. People were sharing all around us and seemed quite happy. A user exodus from Facebook never materialized. I couldnÃÕ even get my own teenage daughter to look at Google+ twice, ÅÔocial isnÃÕ a product, she told me after I gave her a demo, ÅÔocial is people and the people are on Facebook. Google was the rich kid who, after having discovered he wasnÃÕ invited to the party, built his own party in retaliation. The fact that no one came to GoogleÃÔ party became the elephant in the room. Google+ and me, we were simply never meant to be. Truth is IÃ×e never been much on advertising. I donÃÕ click on ads. When Gmail displays ads based on things I type into my email message it creeps me out. I donÃÕ want my search results to contain the rants of Google+ posters (or FacebookÃÔ or TwitterÃÔ for that matter). When I search for Ã…*ondon pub walks I want better than the sponsored suggestion to Å£uy a London pub walk at Wal-Mart. The old Google made a fortune on ads because they had good content. It was like TV used to be: make the best show and you get the most ad revenue from commercials. The new Google seems more focused on the commercials themselves. Perhaps Google is right. Perhaps the future lies in learning as much about peopleÃÔ personal lives as possible. Perhaps Google is a better judge of when I should call my mom and that my life would be better if I shopped that Nordstrom sale. Perhaps if they nag me enough about all that open time on my calendar IÃÃl work out more often. Perhaps if they offer an ad for a divorce lawyer because I am writing an email about my 14 year old son breaking up with his girlfriend IÃÃl appreciate that ad enough to end my own marriage. Or perhaps IÃÃl figure all this stuff out on my own. The old Google was a great place to work. The new one? -1 http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jw_on_tech/archive/2012/03/13/why-i-left-google.aspx
EnterTheVoid Posted March 20, 2012 Posted March 20, 2012 Google came to my campus last week and got us coding the Google Maps API.
akshayxyz Posted March 20, 2012 Posted March 20, 2012 Well, his frustration is justified to some extent, but is still wrong at many levels (why I left Google...) Google is still one of the best companies to work with. You can never predict which product/strategy will fail or succeed. As an employee you should be happy to work with smart people and in a good environment.
anotherhawkeye Posted March 20, 2012 Posted March 20, 2012 Is it new ? I thought I have read this several months back. May be it was some one else....more than one self centered person with a blog must be leaving google every month.
Lurker Posted March 20, 2012 Posted March 20, 2012 Google could still put ads in front of more people than Facebook, but Facebook knows so much more about those people. Advertisers and publishers cherish this kind of personal information, so much so that they are willing to put the Facebook brand before their own. Exhibit A: www.facebook.com/nike, a company with the power and clout of Nike putting their own brand after FacebookÃÔ? No company has ever done that for Google and Google took it personally. That has been a baffling decision across the board and I have wondered it so many times myself. Forget Nike who are obviously targetting the younger generation who are the largest consumer block of Nike products, and also spend a ton of time on facebook. It makes business sense. But what about news media? Say CNN. Anytime I watch Anderson Cooper 360 and have him say - Please send us your comments on facebook.com/360 or something like that I tend to cringe a little bit. In one simple measure they send a huge number of traffic to Facebook, build a whole lot of branding and also delude their own organization. More so since CNN belongs to AOL Time Warner consortium and although AOL is not what it used to be, it is still a smart company with resources to create a media platform for CNN. I am neither a fan of Google nor Facebook, both are overly bloated companies who have hurt more than done good for economy overall...however in this case I do have symathies for Google. xxx
rabinjackman Posted March 20, 2012 Posted March 20, 2012 y do u need to write an article on why ur leaving a company? :hmmmm: I left so many, should i put up a blog on that too :idea: brb :
akshayxyz Posted March 20, 2012 Posted March 20, 2012 That has been a baffling decision across the board and I have wondered it so many times myself. Forget Nike who are obviously targetting the younger generation who are the largest consumer block of Nike products, and also spend a ton of time on facebook. It makes business sense. But what about news media? Say CNN. Anytime I watch Anderson Cooper 360 and have him say - Please send us your comments on facebook.com/360 or something like that I tend to cringe a little bit. In one simple measure they send a huge number of traffic to Facebook, build a whole lot of branding and also delude their own organization. More so since CNN belongs to AOL Time Warner consortium and although AOL is not what it used to be, it is still a smart company with resources to create a media platform for CNN. I am neither a fan of Google nor Facebook, both are overly bloated companies who have hurt more than done good for economy overall...however in this case I do have symathies for Google. xxx :hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical:
akshayxyz Posted March 20, 2012 Posted March 20, 2012 y do u need to write an article on why ur leaving a company? :hmmmm: I left so many, should i put up a blog on that too :idea: brb : I would have ended up writing a whole book.
seedhi Posted March 20, 2012 Posted March 20, 2012 I am neither a fan of Google nor Facebook' date='[b'] both are overly bloated companies who have hurt more than done good for economy overall...however in this case I do have symathies for Google. xxxWhy so bitter?:haha:
Lurker Posted March 20, 2012 Posted March 20, 2012 Why so bitter?:haha: Thought my sentiments were well summed up. Your issue is? :hmmm:
seedhi Posted March 20, 2012 Posted March 20, 2012 Thought my sentiments were well summed up. Your issue is? :hmmm:No issues .. just wondering whether you really meant the bolded portion or was it a joke; either way it sounded bitter ..
Desi Cartman Posted March 20, 2012 Posted March 20, 2012 That has been a baffling decision across the board and I have wondered it so many times myself. Forget Nike who are obviously targetting the younger generation who are the largest consumer block of Nike products, and also spend a ton of time on facebook. It makes business sense. But what about news media? Say CNN. Anytime I watch Anderson Cooper 360 and have him say - Please send us your comments on facebook.com/360 or something like that I tend to cringe a little bit. In one simple measure they send a huge number of traffic to Facebook, build a whole lot of branding and also delude their own organization. More so since CNN belongs to AOL Time Warner consortium and although AOL is not what it used to be, it is still a smart company with resources to create a media platform for CNN. I am neither a fan of Google nor Facebook, both are overly bloated companies who have hurt more than done good for economy overall...however in this case I do have symathies for Google. xxx It took me a while to accept but now "www" = Facebook.com, company's URL is positioned after Facebook.com now. I was at a conference few days ago (Saas) they had 10s of breakout sessions and only one of them had a queue of 100 people and that session had "Facebook" in their title while another session for similar topic was just social media and it had practically nobody attending it. People to companies, everybody is crazy about Facebook these days
Lurker Posted March 20, 2012 Posted March 20, 2012 No issues .. just wondering whether you really meant the bolded portion or was it a joke; either way it sounded bitter .. So you really did not have a question, or a comment. You were in the judgemental mood. Good to see I brought that aspect out one more time..:haha:
seedhi Posted March 20, 2012 Posted March 20, 2012 So you really did not have a question, or a comment. You were in the judgemental mood. Good to see I brought that aspect out one more time..:haha:Obviously, I see a joker, I evaluate his "performance" ..
Lurker Posted March 20, 2012 Posted March 20, 2012 It took me a while to accept but now "www" = Facebook.com' date= company's URL is positioned after Facebook.com now. I was at a conference few days ago (Saas) they had 10s of breakout sessions and only one of them had a queue of 100 people and that session had "Facebook" in their title while another session for similar topic was just social media and it had practically nobody attending it. People to companies, everybody is crazy about Facebook these days And thats what is baffling in many ways. One can understand smaller companies who do not have neccessary IT infrastructure in place to compete in online world, jumping on facebook bandwagon. It is hard to see CNN, ESPN, TIME leading media outlets etc letting Facebook be an important part of their media plans. And you are right about the conference, too often these days BI conferences are overloaded with social media messaging. The key takeaway almost always is to do this because everybody else is doing so. Very little is mentioned about the ROI for such toolstack extensions.
Lurker Posted March 20, 2012 Posted March 20, 2012 Obviously' date=' I see a joker, I evaluate his "performance" ..[/quote'] Good to see the evaluation is continuing after 3 solid post of yours. Do I always get to you so easily Seedhi? :giggle::giggle:
seedhi Posted March 20, 2012 Posted March 20, 2012 Good to see the evaluation is continuing after 3 solid post of yours. Do I always get to you so easily Seedhi? :giggle::giggle:Yeah right, coming from some one who rants about Facebook and offers Google his sympathies (:hysterical: :hysterical:) while being bitter about both .. Btw, do you plan to justify your statement that Google and Facebook have been detrimental to the US economy or was it really a joke ?
Lurker Posted March 20, 2012 Posted March 20, 2012 Yeah right' date=' coming from some one who [b']rants about Facebook and offers Google his sympathies (:hysterical: :hysterical:) while being bitter about both .. Shouldnt you have spent more energy suggesting why you found that a rant, instead of wearing your freaky judgemental hat?? By the way since you are one of the loony brigades who keeps counts, that was a retarded 4th post from you...still nothing on the subject. So whos the joker eh? Btw, do you plan to justify your statement that Google and Facebook have been detrimental to the US economy or was it really a joke ? Read up ace, already put up a few pointers on the subject. Unlike you who is still hallucinating and taking potshots :--D
akshayxyz Posted March 20, 2012 Posted March 20, 2012 And thats what is baffling in many ways. One can understand smaller companies who do not have neccessary IT infrastructure in place to compete in online world, jumping on facebook bandwagon. It is hard to see CNN, ESPN, TIME leading media outlets etc letting Facebook be an important part of their media plans. And you are right about the conference, too often these days BI conferences are overloaded with social media messaging. The key takeaway almost always is to do this because everybody else is doing so. Very little is mentioned about the ROI for such toolstack extensions. Why don't you write a paper and enlighten them. :sherlock:
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