Comment by thefourthchime
2 years ago
Dude needs a new job. He's been the Steve Balmer of Google, ruining what made them great and running the company into the ground.
2 years ago
Dude needs a new job. He's been the Steve Balmer of Google, ruining what made them great and running the company into the ground.
>Steve Balmer of Google
I've been making this exact comparison for years at this point.
Both inherited companies with market dominant core products in near monopoly positions. They both kept the lights on, but the companies under them repeatedly fail the break into new markets and suffer from a near total lack of coherent vision and perverse internal incentives that contribute to the failure of new products. And after a while, the quality of that core product starts to stumble as well.
The fact that we've seen this show before makes it all the more baffling to me that investors are happy about it. Especially when in the same timeframe we've seen Satya Nadella completely transform Microsoft and deliver relatively meteoric performance.
Balmer made Microsoft the most profitable it had ever been. He didn't grow them into big new areas, but he improved the focus, trimmed the costs, and vastly improved the bottom line. A successful company may need vision and expansion, but at some point it also needs to be able to actually convert that into profit, otherwise you turn into Sun - or indeed recent Google, who've come out with some great products but never managed to convert any of them into profit centers.
The dude shipped Windows 8! He insisted on this insane mishmash of tablet and windows that made sense to nobody. Somehow they shipped this, which tells me the emperor wears no clothes.
I completely agree with Satya Nadella, I haven't seen a turnaround since Steve Jobs came back to Apple. He took a company that couldn't seem to get out of its way and turned it into an innovative, exciting, and insanely profitable company.
He's also totally transformed the public image of Microsoft, from ruthless monopolist to one of the least evil, most open giant tech companies. With actions, not words.
It's not all perfect and wonderful, but they're miles away from the Gates/Ballmer era, it's remarkable.
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I'd ask Gemini to find his replacement.
LOL. He'll need new job when Google board decide to fire him. So far it does not look like happening.
It's more like when Larry & Sergey and Eric decide to fire him. Because that's how Google was structured.
Same thing. So far whenever Larry speaks about Sundar it is more responsibility/promotion for him.
I'm wondering why they're keeping him around. Maybe they feel like they've got more control when Sundar is in charge, since he's less likely to make any rash decisions or sudden movements (or any movements at all...)
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Really just Larry & Sergey, who control the voting shares for the company.