Can Prabhakar Do the Black Widow Thing to Technology at Google?
October 21, 2024
No smart software but we may use image generators to add some modern spice to the dinobaby’s output.
The reliable (mostly?) Wall Street Journal ran a story titled“Google Executive Overseeing Search and Advertising Leaves Role.” The executive in question is Prabhakar Raghavan, the other half of the Sundar and Prabhakar Comedy Team. The wizardly Prabhakar is the person Edward Zitron described as “The Man Who Killed Google Search.” I recommend reading that essay because it has more zip than the Murdoch approach to poohbah analysis.
I want to raise a question because I assume that Mr. Zitron is largely correct about the demise of Google Search. The sleek Prabhakar accelerated the decline. He was the agent of the McKinsey think infused in his comedy partner Sundar. The two still get laughs at their high school reunions amidst chums and more when classmates gather to explain their success to one another.
The Google approach: Who needs relevance? Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Not quite excellent.
What is the question? Here it is:
Will Prabhakar do to Google’s technology what he did to search?
My view is that Google’s technology has demonstrated corporate ossification. The company “invented”, according to Google lore, the transformer. Then Google — because it was concerned about its invention — released some of it as open source and then watched as Microsoft marketed AI as the next big thing for the Softies. And what was the outfit making Microsoft’s marketing coup possible? It was Sam AI-Man.
Microsoft, however, has not been a technology leader for how many years?
Suddenly the Google announced a crisis and put everyone on making Google the leader in AI. I assume the McKinsey think did not give much thought to the idea that MSFT’s transformer would be used to make Google look darned silly. In fact, it was Prabhakar who stole the attention of the pundits with a laughable AI demonstration in Paris.
Flash forward from early 2023 to late 2024 what’s Google doing with technology? My perception is that Google is trying to create AI winners, capture the corporate market from Microsoft, and convince as many people as possible that if Google is broken apart, AI in America will flop.
Yes, the fate of the nation hangs on Google’s remaining a monopoly. That sounds like a punch line to a skit in the Sundar and Prabhakar Comedy Show.
Here’s my hypothesis: The death of search (the Edward Zitron view) is a job well done. The curtains fall on Act I of the Google drama. Act II is about the Google technology. The idea is that the technology of the online advertising monopoly defines the future of America.
Stay tuned because the story will be streamed on YouTube with advertising, lots of advertising, of course.
Stephen E Arnold, October 21, 2024
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