Alphabet Google: Rumblings Centered in Mountain View
May 31, 2018
I noted an interesting article suggesting that Google wanted or hoped to hire the brains behind Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin. Ethereum, as you may know, is now supported by Amazon. Why not use open source Ethereum?
Answer: Google likes to have the smartest people in the world. Merely using is just not the same as having the brain itself.
I thought about Google’s “hire the guy already” approach to company and new product management. From my vantage point which one wild and crazy entrepreneur described as clueless, Amazon appears to be heading a different direction. Google, it seems, is hunting for a direction in which to go.
As a reference point, Amazon, in my opinion, knows where it is heading. Google, it seems to me, is not sure which compass point is calling to them. Therefore, the management approach seems to be hire smart people and let those individuals figure it out.
The consequences of that approach formed the guts of the story “AI Deal with Pentagon Crates Schism at Google.” To read the printer version you will need the dead tree version of the newspaper. The story appears on the first page of the paper and jumps to page A 15 in the version of the paper which sometimes gets delivered to me in rural Kentucky. There is also an online version of the story which has a different headline. Helpful, right? That version of the story is at this link.
For starters, let me say that I do not believe there is one Alphabet Google. There’s the YouTube thing. There are the low cost death ray services purpose built to kill off Microsoft Office. There are venture firms galore. There are the whiz kids at Google X who are in charge of moon shots.
From here in Harrod’s Creek, the many and duplicative products and services create a grey haze which is a “gaze” as harmful as the Hawaii “laze”.
Glowing in the middle of this digital universe is pay to play advertising centric search. That’s the money machine spewing lava like a Puna vent. After two decades in business and trying really hard to diversify is Google with its advertising revenue.
The NYT story makes a point about Googlers who want smart software to be used for “good.” News flash, Googlers: technology available to the US government is applied to specific problems given priority by a federal agency, department, unit, or inter agency working group. When those projects are classified, it is possible the companies providing the technology have zero idea about certain government activities related to a technology.
Here’s another old chestnut from the cobbled streets of Georgetown: If a company does not do business directly with the US government, intermediary firms provide a conduit for the needed technology. Obviously chatter about what firms provide these services is not usually circulated widely.
The value of the NYT article is that it provides insight into the management methods at Google. I noted three points in the write up. Let me highlight these, and simultaneously urge you to read one of the versions of the NYT article. Even though the title dates of the versions change, the basic points are the same.
Here are my highlights:
- Google chased a Department of Defense contract but developed no game plan for dealing with its employees or the individuals who write articles. Net: No tactical planning.
- Google has factions within the company who are publicly opposed to the use of smart software for warfighting. Net: No management mechanism for its employees. Some of these employees may embrace the now irrelevant “Don’t be evil” catchphrase.
- Google has been involved in US government projects for many years. Many of these are meaningless like licensing the Google Search Appliance to a clueless US government agency unit. As it turned out, Google demanded the return of the GSA because the government client wanted special customer support. No joke. Other projects are more meaningful and lack the “name in lights” visibility Maven has been receiving. Net: Nothing new with this Maven deal except that it gets the Google a seat at a table which very well could be dominated by Amazon, not just IBM and a handful of other established vendors.
Net net: The issue is not Maven. The issue strikes at what is the central weakness of Alphabet Google: Its approach to managing its employees and by extension, its business.
From jumping in and out of business sectors (remember Orkut?) to buying companies and then marginalizing them (Motorola, remember?) to starting products and then orphaning them (remember Google Answers?)—Alphabet Google has manifested situational decision making, sort of like a Delta force operator on a mission alone.
For many of the under 25 year olds with whom I talk know anything about the legal dust up about Google’s online advertising business. None know about the Yahoo, Overture, GoTo settlement with Google prior to its IPO. That was an operation which yielded revenue success. But the management method used to complete that mission is now under considerable stress. Alphabet Google is in need of more than “operators,” no matter how intelligent.
The bottom-line is that the NYT has explained the Google employee Maven issue. From my point of view, which I want you to know one wizard called me dumb, Google has struggled to diversify its revenue. Like its other efforts to generate significant, sustainable and profitable new products and services, Google has not been the sharpest knife in the kitchen drawer. Heck, I thought I was the dull implement.
When writing about Google, it’s time to leave the lore of Backrub behind. Forget the bits and bytes, Alphabet Google has reached an important way station in its new revenue journey. The question is, “What must be done to arrive at a destination?” Too bad Peter Drucker is no longer alive. Perhaps he and Vitalik Buterin (the Ethereum wizard) could share an office at Google?
Stephen E Arnold, May 31, 2018
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