Is Google Too Smart For Its Own Good?

An anonymous reader writes in with a piece in Fortune speculating on what's next for Google. The writer believes that a supersaturated solution of very smart people, plus stock that may have run out of upside, will yield what he calls Son of Google — a large wave of innovative companies created by Google graduates. And a Google less intent on hiring, and less able to hire, the very smartest people around. Could happen.

Perhaps...

[PatrickThomson]

Perhaps part of the google ethos and internal structure is aimed at reducing competition from former employees - the sorts of pressures that drive people to break away are diminished, with the 20% project time and a good chance of whatever you're working on becoming a proper google beta. Of course, people that just have a drive to be the boss of the boss's boss will still form companies, perhaps they are eliminated at interview?

Online service providers

[pubjames]

I'm not sure that online service providers are going to be naturally monolithic in the way that, say, hardware manufacturers or pre-web software companies are. I find it easy to imagine that Google's core business could be wiped out in a year by a new upstart with a better technology. Microsoft are lucky in that they have established lock-in - it will be superceded by something else over the long term rather than replaced by superior products of the same ilk. Google doesn't have any lock-in, and I think the nature of online serices is such that companies that try to establish it aren't going to be successful.

Re: Is Google Too Smart For Its Own Good?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Slashdot Too Political And FUD'ish For Its Own Good?

Re:Perhaps...

[Calinous]

I don't think becoming a Google employee is a very good start to form a business. Anyway, it is possible - just as former Microsoft employee could break in and form businesses. However, take into consideration the simple fact that after working for such a software giant, you will have non-compete clauses for several years, and quitting Google to someday form your own business seems less than attractive. And one more thing - Google only does searching (for money). All its other projects are free - bad thing to work on, if you want to start a company that will get you money. As a side note, I remember ex-Sun employee (Technology Officer or the same) quitting the company, creating a start-up that develops one thing missing from Sun (developing it well), and then being absorbed back (with their solutions and know-how) for a barrel of money. It seems fair, as while working inside Sun you might have been forced to work on something else. Again, Google employee might be able to start something like this - or not

Re:Complaint? About spinoff's?

[arivanov]

Bollocks.

AFAIK they still happily throw out 99.9%+ of all candidates tagged as potentials by their headhunters leaving only what they like. The "cannot hire" is when the candidates start to turn them down. This happened to Yahoo and their other major competitors very long ago. In fact as far as yahoo goes many people turn it down even before reading the job description to the end (for plenty of reasons).

This is yet to happen to Google. I have yet to see a person who has been selected for an interview, had an offer and turned it down. At least in Europe.

Frankly, this problem exists only in the feverish hallucinations of the media and analysts.

Maybe, but

[joss]

Hiring mediocre people backfires a lot sooner than hiring only really smart
people.

The kind of people who will form their own companies will do so irrespective of whether they work for google first.

What?

[DMouse]

Right, lets role play here for a minute. I'm a phd coder employed at google. I have a good chunk of cash in google shares that will vest soonish. So I'm going to take that money and go and start a startup because?

Which wally thought that the primary motivation for programmers was making money?

Pretty much every study of programmers motivations i have ever read has shown them to be intrinsically motivated by the opportunity to solve puzzles, and to be able to hang out with birds of similar feather. The fact is that money isn't that much of a motivator for coders, provided there is sufficient to buy toys. The latest laptop. A 30" lcd into which to plug said laptop. A plasma telly and an xbox 360 on which to play halo.

Starting up a company is risky, there is a bucket load of work to do that isn't coding, and you have to stop talking to all the other coders who you like chatting with at work. Wtf?

Someone has NO CLUE how coders think. And this made it to the front page of slashdot how, exactly?

You don't graduate FROM google...

[192939495969798999]

You graduate TO google. The reason this will not happen is that people are still heading towards Google to make cool products. They will pay you to work on your own stuff at least 20% of the time, what better investment could you get?

Re:What?

[GrumpySimon]

Exactly - google will start losing talented people only once they stop doing cool things. As long as they keep putting out new shiny toys, what geek wouldn't want to work there?

Re:Innovative projects

[TheJasper]

I agree completely. As I understand it you are even required to spend 20% of your time on your own project. One of the smartest people I know will probably go to Google soon, so I don't think they have a problem with hiring. As to spinoffs, sure maybe there will be some, which is a good thing too. However, if you get to work on your cool idea on company time, and get bonuses in relation to the succes of your project, why start up your own company. Do you want to become a manager who has to run a business, or do you want to play with your toys. Google works by making it profitable not to start your own company. Sure, you might not make 1 billion dollars with a brilliant idea, but who needs that much money? If google makes it that your brilliant idea earns you millions and does the boring admin and pays you to work on your next crackpot idea that may or may not work then why would you leave.

Re:Google's success.

[mgblst]

What has it got to do with managers? Entrepreneurs, sure, and the people who created Google are not managers, but Entrepreneus. And it is not luck, it was producing a good product at the right time. A better search engine, just when the whole world needed one. Microsoft could have had this sewn up, if they didn't underestimate the value of the internet. So could a lot of other companies, but it is a difficult thing to see the way the world is heading, especially for large businesses.

You people make it sound like they fell into a pile of money, or the managed their way into the market which is absolute rubbish.

Re:Google's success.

[roaddemon]

How was Google lucky? They came into an already saturated search market and collected a vast market share because they did a better job of it than everyone else. If you switched to Google in 1999 or 2000, it wasn't because there was nothing else available, and it wasn't because they had a great ad campaign; it was because of the word of mouth that a great product generates.

Re:Google's success.

[91degrees]

Their product is text ads. Not search technology. The search engine is just a hook.

Someone else could have come up with the text ads earlier. They didn't. Google got there first.

Luck?!

[superbrose]

A little off-topic, but in an interview the golfer Bernard Langer was once told that he was extremely lucky to sink a particularly difficult put.
He responded 'The more I practise, the luckier I get!'.

I don't believe the successes of Google or Microsoft are down to luck. Neither do I think that Warren Buffett is a lucky investor.
Being opportunistic and taking a calculated risk sounds more like it.

Google too smart for it's own good

[suv4x4]

What a major plot twist.

If Google is "too smart for it's own good", I suppose same people would say "Microsoft is too dumb for its own bad".

Then suddenly it all makes sense. Right? Nope. But still good 'nuf for Slashdot, start the presses!

Re:Poor Google!

[Columcille]

Well it's nothing new, Microsoft has already been there, done that. Give it 10 years and Google will be the new company geeks love to hate. It's already getting that way for a growing minority.

Re:Google's success.

[91degrees]

Yes. I made a mistake of implying that it was all down to luck. But Google is not inherently better than a lot of substantially less successful products. If the Stanford grads had learned about computer vision or something, they would no doubt have come up with a remarkably good image recognitiuon system, which probably would have netted them a decent reward. But they happened to research an area where at the time there was a large gulf in the market.

Someone else would have written that thesis, and would have leapt on the chance. They might still write a thesis, but they'll find that the gulf has been filled. They lose out, because they're unlucky enough to have come to it too late.

Re:Maybe, but

[renoX]

>A piece of advice? Find another language to rant in, please.

No the content of his post was insightful, if you're not able to ignore some minor spelling mistake (maybe it was late in his timezone, or he was in a hurry, etc), go away.

Your post isn't insightful at all, the GP is right there are many different type of intelligence and being labelled smart doesn't mean that you have all these skills, only a few specialised.