Comment by rescripting

The way people keep describing Google, at least from the outside, sounds like a jobs program for developers funded by ad revenue.

So many of their products oscillate around the bar of profitability but so few reach the level of materially affecting Google’s bottom line that they can continually pop in and out of existence like subatomic particles.

Meanwhile the developers on these projects work towards their products brief moment in the sun so they can leverage it to move up and out, leaving it to die on the vine.

It’s a chaotic way to run a company, a decent way to make a living as a developer, and a shit way to build any kind of legacy, either as a company or as an individual.