Alphabet Google: Rambling, Scrambling, and Managing
February 18, 2021
The Google — actually Alphabet — has been beavering away in Silicon Valley. So much to do and so little time. First, the company caught the attention of gamers with its interesting Stadia crawfishing. Hey, that could be a video game similar to Angry Birds. The GOOG does not innovate; the Google imitates and duplicates. That’s definitely been a secret sauce in the instant messaging department.
Next, the company cut a deal with Australia. Isn’t that the stomping ground for Rupert Murdoch, the bright white light and clear blue flame thinker for news? Mr. Rupert has captured headlines with analyses by the laser intellect of a “real news” generator. You can read that remarkable analysis here.
And the cherry on top of the Googley banana split is reorganizing its artificial intelligence unit. The story “Google to Reorganize AI Teams in Wake of Researcher’s Departure” states:
Google has sought to diffuse employee rancor stemming from the acrimonious departure of a prominent Black researcher, Timnit Gebru. The responsible AI teams will roll up to Marian Croak, a Black Google executive who currently serves as a vice president of engineering focused on site-reliability matters. Croak will report to Jeff Dean, the senior vice president of Google AI.
Each of these is a potential top tier business school case study. That seems unlikely, however, in the aftermath of the Covid thing’s impact on some universities and advanced degrees programs. Consider these business implications of each of these examples of stellar management certitude:
- Stadia seems to have arrived and departed much like Dodgeball and Web Accelerator. Quick decisions are one hallmark of thoughtful, organized business actions.
- The “pay to play” model seems to provide incentive to large publishers to accept Google’s cash. Google’s reluctance to pay for news, its saber rattling, its posturing by the company’s Australian executives, vaporized with what I call a Rupert deal.
- The reorganization of Google AI has more to do with preserving the Google status quo than substantive change. Isn’t Dr. Jeff Dean still in charge? Wasn’t he the wizard who added an accelerant to the Gibiru affair.
Let’s step back. In the space of a week, Google — actually Alphabet — has abandoned the science club approach to reality. Google is killing products after praising the workers soon to be terminated. Google is buying cooperation from the inspiration behind today’s Wall Street Journal and Fox News. Plus Google is trying to deal with employee unrest with an old school management technique: Shuffling deck chairs. (Hey, I did not mention the Titanic. You thought that. Come on. Admit it.)
What have we learned? One can view Google’s actions as brilliant managerial execution. On the other hand, Google seems to be showboating. There is also a middle ground. The new Google just does not know what to do: Be forceful, spend money, reorganize, and demonstrate the values of managers who really miss the high school science club meetings from a past long dead but not forgotten.
Stephen E Arnold, February 18, 2021
Google: Alleged Candidate Filtering
February 18, 2021
Who knows if this story is 100 percent spot on. It does illustrate a desire to present the Google in a negative way, and it seems to make clear how simple filters can come back to bite the hands of the busy developers who add features and functions without much thought for larger implications.
The story is “Google Has Been Allowing Advertisers to Exclude Nonbinary People from Seeing Job Ads.” The main idea seems to be:
Google’s advertising system allowed employers or landlords to discriminate against nonbinary and some transgender people…
Oh, oh.
If true, the check box for “exclude these” could become a bit of a sink hole.
The write up points out:
It’s not clear if the advertisers meant to prevent nonbinary people or those identifying as transgender from finding out about job openings.
Interesting item if accurate.
Stephen E Arnold, February 18, 2021
Alphabet Google Spells Misunderstanding with a You
February 17, 2021
Developers at Google’s recently formed game studios were shocked February 1 when they were notified that the studios would be shut down, according to four sources with knowledge of what transpired. Just the week prior, Google Stadia vice president and general manager Phil Harrison sent an email to staff lauding the “great progress” its studios had made so far. Mass layoffs were announced a few days later, part of an apparent pattern of Stadia leadership not being honest and upfront with the company’s developers, many of which had upended their lives and careers to join the team.
The Stadia Xooglers-to-be tried to get more information from Alphabet Google. According to the article:
One source described the Q&A as an ultimately unsuccessful attempt at extracting some kind of accountability from Stadia management. “I think people really just wanted the truth of what happened,” said the source. “They just want an explanation from leadership. If you started this studio and hired a hundred or so of these people, no one starts that just for it to go away in a year or so, right? You can’t make a game in that amount of time…We had multi-year reassurance, and now we don’t.” The source added that the Q&A “wasn’t pretty.”
The management finesse is notable. If the information in the article is accurate, the consistency of Alphabet Google’s management methods is evident. I have labeled the approach “the high school science club management method” or HSSCMM. With the challenges many business schools face, the technique is not explored with the rigor of other approaches. Nevertheless, several characteristics of this Stadia motif are worth noting:
- Misinformation
- Awkward communications
- Insensitivity to the needs of Googlers on the express bus to Xooglerdom
- A certain blindness toward strategic and tactical planning.
Online games are bigger than many other forms of entertainment. I recall learning that in the mid 2000s, Google probed Yahoo about online games if I recall the presentation I heard 15 years ago.
Taking the article at face value, it appears that Alphabet Google spells misunderstanding with a you. There is no letter “we” in Alphabet I conclude. High school science club members struggle with the pronoun and spelling thing I conclude.
What’s the outlook for Alphabet Google in the burgeoning online game sector? Options include:
- Acquiring a company and integrating it into the Google
- Cleaning the high school and leaving the Science Club leadership intact
- Creating a duplicate service with activity centered in another country which is a variation on Google’s approach to messaging
- Going into a holding pattern and making a fresh start once the news cycle forgets that Alphabet Google failed on the well publicized game initiative.
- Teaming with Microsoft to create the bestest online game service ever.
Stephen E Arnold, February 17, 2021
Google: An Homage to Donald Rumsfeld
February 16, 2021
I read “Uncovering Unknown Unknowns in Machine Learning.” The title reminded me of Donald Rumsfeld who served as US Secretary of Defense fro9m 1975 to 1977. He is the author of Known and Unknown: A Memoir. He allegedly coined the quip:
There are known knowns, things we know that we…” “There are known knowns, things we know that we know; and there are known unknowns, things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns, things we do not know we don’t know.”
The Google blog post states:
The goal of the challenge is to raise the bar in ML evaluation sets and to find as many examples as possible that are confusing or otherwise problematic for algorithms to process.
Yep, Google wants others to help it deal with unknown unknowns. I won’t chop the logic of Mr. Rumsfeld’s alleged quip. I absolutely won’t compare knowing unknown unknowns to Google’s attempt to “solve death.”
I will make three observations:
- I think that the Google wants to use this type of Fancy Dan initiative to get in front of the tempest swirling around Timnit Gebru incendiary devices
- The desire to associate Google with something inherent in trying to make smart software do more than sell ads threads through the CATS4ML announcement. I think of the announcement as a variant of “stuff happens” and not even the Google can figure it out
- The initiative may be a building block in Google’s Spring 2021 game plan which will allow more ad revenue to flow whilst neutralizing difficult decisions about staff who raise uncomfortable research topics.
My three points are known unknowns. These are less troublesome than Google’s bold efforts to solve death and identify unknown unknowns. Nope, I don’t want to do the phenomenological existentialism of smart software. Not for me. Too old.
Stephen E Arnold, February 16, 2021
The Unthinkable: Will Google News and Facebook Pay Publishers for Content?
February 15, 2021
Regulators are beginning to agree with publishers that platforms like Google News should pay for the content they post. News Showcase is Google’s answer to this trend, and The Verge reveals it is operating in two new countries in, “Google Now Pays 450 Sites to Bring You Free News, Including Some Paywalled Stories.” In the UK, 120 publishers have enlisted in alongside 40 in Argentina. Those nations join Germany and Brazil, where News Showcase launched last year, and Australia, which joined in just last week. The last example is in interesting study in regulatory pressure and corporate acquiescence. Writer Jon Porter explains:
“Last week, Google News Showcase launched in Australia, a country where the company is currently locking horns with lawmakers over new rules that could force it to pay news publishers for their content. Google recently threatened to pull its search engine from the country if the News Media Bargaining Code goes into effect. Last week, Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he’d held ‘constructive’ talks with Google CEO Sundar Pichai over the new rules. The situation means that although seven Australian publishers have joined the program, covering over 25 publications, The Guardian reports that one outlet, Nine, chose not to negotiate with Google until the new code is brought in. In an FAQ, Google says it believes News Showcase should be compatible with the new rules, since publishers are free to enter into arbitration if they don’t like Google’s News Showcase deal.”
Google plans to soon add France, Canada, and Japan to its News Showcase roster. Meanwhile, Facebook has a similar plan. It is phasing content for which it is actually paying publishers into its News tab, which serves up both curated and personalized content. The initiative started in the US and recently began operation in the UK. Now we know the big tech companies are not completely impervious to regulatory pressure. What is next?
Cynthia Murrell, February 15, 2021
Google and Broad Match
February 11, 2021
I read “Google Is Moving on From Broad Match Modifier.” The essay’s angle is search engine optimization; that is, spoofing Google’s now diluted relevance methods. The write up says:
Google says it has been getting better at learning the intent behind a query, and is therefore more confident it can correctly map advertisements to queries. As that ability improves, the differences between Phrase Match and Broad Match Modified diminishes. Moving forward, there will be three match types, each with specific benefits:
- Exact match: for precision
- Broad match: for reach
- Phrase match: in Google’s words, to combine the best of both.
Let’s assume that these are the reasons. Exact match delivers precision. Broad match casts a wide net. No thumbtypers wants a null set. Obviously there is zero information in a null set in the mind of the GenXers and Millennials, right? The phrase match is supposed to combine precision and recall. Oh, my goodness, precision and recall. What happened to cause the Google to reach into the deep history of STAIRS III and RECON for this notion.
Google hasn’t and won’t.
The missing factor in the write up’s analysis is answering the question, “When will each of the three approaches be used, under what conditions, and what happens if the bus drives to the wrong city?” (This bus analogy is my happy way of expressing the idea that Google search results often have little to do with either the words in the user’s query or the “intent” of the user (allegedly determined by Google’s knowledge of each user and the magic of more than 100 “factors” for determining what to present).
The key is the word “reach.” Changes to Google’s methods are, from my point of view, are designed to accomplish one thing: Burn through ad inventory.
By killing off functioning Boolean, deprecating search operators, ignoring meaningful time indexing, and tossing disambiguation into the wind blowing a Google volleyball into Shoreline traffic — the company’s core search methods have been shaped to produce money.
SEO experts don’t like this viewpoint. Google doesn’t care as long as the money keeps flowing. With Google investing less in infrastructure and facing significant pressure from government investigators and outfits like Amazon and Facebook, re-explaining search boils down to showing content which transports ads.
Where’s that leave the SEO experts? Answer: Ad sales reps for the Google. Traffic comes to advertisers. But the big bucks are the big advertisers’ campaigns which expose a message to as many eyeballs as possible. That’s why “broad reach” is the fox in the relevance hen house.
Stephen E Arnold, February 11, 2021
Terrorized Publishers Try a New Poison Dart on the Google
February 10, 2021
Google has reduced its investment in plumbing. It’s mostly waffled and fumbled its push into online games. The company has failed to keep Loon balloons aloft. And, more disappointingly, the Google has not solved death. Amazon and Facebook, despite protestations to the contrary, are making progress in online advertising. And the Bezos bulldozer’s new driver knows that product searches are Amazon’s personal turf.
Another group, however, wants to pour poison in Googzilla’s ear. The publishers, aided by their advisors, and assorted governments may have found a way. The write up “EU Ready to Follow Australia’s Lead on Making Big Tech Pay for News” reports:
EU lawmakers overseeing new digital regulation in Europe want to force Big Tech companies to pay for news, echoing a similar move in Australia and strengthening the hand of publishers against Google and Facebook.
Note that this article is behind a paywall, and in order to access it, you have to snag a wonky orange copy or fork over some cash. Very European, eh?
What happens if countries require Google to pay for news? What happens if the millennials holding elected and appointed positions don’t buy the threat of blocking search or killing access to Android apps (hopefully those which distribute malware via the Google Play service)? What if the bold push by Google Australia’s wizardly manager is recognized as a company acting like a country, maybe like the nation state in “The Mouse That Roared”?
Let’s see. Google has been involved in doing its brand of “not evil” for information for about 20 years and change. It takes a long time to develop an economic poison. Too bad the governments were not into the “warp speed” approach to innovation.
And France and its Googley tie up? Ah, France.
Stephen E Arnold, February 10, 2021
Can a Cockroach Love the Google Cloud? Absolutely
February 9, 2021
Cockroach Labs has released its third annual report comparing cloud service providers Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). On its own blog the company posts, “GCP Outpaces Azure, AWS in the 2021 Cloud Report.” The focus is on online transaction processing (OLTP). Writers Arul Ajmani, John Kendall, Yevgeniy Miretskiy, and Jessica Edwards tell us:
“Our intention is to help our customers and any builder of OLTP applications understand the performance tradeoffs present within each cloud and within each cloud’s individual machines. Perhaps your current configuration isn’t the most cost effective. Or you are looking to build a net-new application and want to see which provider has the fastest network latency. Maybe storage has been an issue in the past and you are looking for new solutions. Regardless of your motivation, the report is designed to help you achieve your goals and develop the best architecture for your specific needs. The 2021 Cloud Report is developed by a team of dedicated engineers and industry experts at Cockroach Labs. It compares AWS, Azure, and GCP on micro and industry benchmarks that reflect critical OLTP applications and workloads. This year, we assessed 54 machines and conducted nearly 1,000 benchmark runs to measure CPU Performance (CoreMark), Network Performance (Netperf), Storage I/O Performance (FIO), OLTP Performance (Cockroach Labs Derivative of TPC-C).”
The post summarizes the report’s highlights. As suggested by the title, the team found Google to deliver the most throughput. On the other hand, AWS’ network latencies remain on top for the third year in a row. We’re told AWS’ custom Graviton2 Processor beat the competition, both running AMD processors, for 16-core CPU performance. The writers also explain when it is worth paying more for each providers’ “advanced disks.” For more details, see the post or navigate to the report itself. Cloud SQL database maker Cockroach Labs was founded in 2015 and is based in New York City. No observations about the prevalence of certain insects in Alphabet City.
Cynthia Murrell, February 9, 2021
Has Google Muffed the Bunny? Translation: Is Googzilla from Warped Ad DNA?
February 3, 2021
I read “This is How Google will Collapse,” written not by a student allegedly named Daniel Colin James, affiliated in some way with an entity called Empirics Asia. Yep, another name ending in –ic like politic, semantic, and the worst word of this set ethic.
The write up is a dark prognosis for the GOOG. I visualized a somber physician telling a patient, “Look at the bright side, you have more years to live before you die an agonizingly slow death.”
The main point of the write up is that Google chased the hopes and dreams of artificial intelligence. That’s a useful endeavor, but Google did little to respond to certain user cohorts embracing ad blockers, Amazon taking the product search traffic from under Googzilla’s snout, and Facebook pushing hard into online advertising.
The write up notes:
Google’s then-CEO Sundar Pichai famously predicted in 2016 that “the next big step will be for the very concept of the ‘device’ to fade away” and that “over time, the computer itself — whatever its form factor — will be an intelligent assistant helping you through your day. We will move from mobile first to an AI first world.” Google’s ability to acknowledge the coming trend and still fail to land in front of it reminded many observers of its catastrophic failures in the booming industries of social media and instant messaging.
I circled in red this statement from the Empircs’ post:
Google was a driving force in the technology industry ever since its disruptive entry in 1998. But in a world where people despised ads, Google’s business model was not innovation-friendly, and they missed several opportunities to pivot, ultimately rendering their numerous grand and ambitious projects unsustainable. Innovation costs money, and Google’s main stream of revenue had started to dry up. In a few short years, Google had gone from a fun, commonplace verb to a reminder of how quickly a giant can fall.
Not exactly E=mc^2 but more of a what goes up must come down—sort of like a Loon balloon. The gas leaks out and then plop.
Stephen E Arnold, February 3, 2021
Mom and Pop Online Ad Vendor Warrants Cutting Words from Down Under
February 2, 2021
I read “Shrill Threats: Google Risks Losing Media Fight.” The author seems not to be in fear of the acumen, the management prowess, and the business brilliance of the mom and pop online ad vendor. One should, I suppose, feel Googzilla’s pain. Amazon is on a tear in product search. The rattled Facebook continues to suck in advertiser money. Apple sells high margin hardware and has multiple revenue streams dumping cash into the weird Apple building.
The point of the story in the Sydney Morning Herald was to underscore the way in which the GOOG is perceived in Australia. Its country manager and the goal of playing hardball with folks who are quite hardy is news. After cutting a deal with the wine and cheese crowd in France, Google wants to avoid paying for content. Hey, content can be scraped like snow from a drive way. The difference is that real snow scraping can cause heart attacks. The Google scraping has caused anger to build among some publishers in Australia. The result may be more than a snowball fight.
Here’s the passage I circled in Google blue:
is beyond time. The issues surrounding big tech monopoly power have been a matter of controversy for years and there is compelling historical precedent for governments to act to break the market dominance. Big tech had the financial resources to nip this in a bud long ago. But they lacked strategic insight, not understanding that unless they adjusted their mantra around free content and looked more broadly at the what constitutes public good: governments would inevitably act. Instead their response has been arrogant, financially mean and wrapped in denial now translating into shrill threats.
I added some emphasis to you, gentle reader, can ponder a comment no Silicon Valley whiz has had an opportunity to enjoy previously. Imagine Googzilla emitting a shrill howl. Pretty vivid audio. I wonder if Google Translate can make sense of those Googley sounds? Probably not. I think the Google’s lawyers will do the talking.
Stephen E Arnold, February 2, 2021
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