alt Hacker NewsGoogle has largely stagnated with products that they largely already had before Satya Nadella took over. Facebook was kind of at its peak then and they had bought Whatsapp and added Instagram to their portfolio. But since then, Meta has had a few duds as well and it seems a bit lackluster lately. Messenger launched and imploded. Then VR. And now they are messing up with AI.
The point is, if Google and Meta got the best people, what the hell did they do in the last ten years? I think they mostly got more people and less ability to do anything very well. It hasn't worked out that great for them. Neither of them has much to show for their efforts. Google bootstrapped AI and then had their people walk off to form OpenAI who are (for now) best buddies with MS. Facebook/Meta keeps changing their mind about what they are about. Social media, VR, and now AI. But it seems they end up chasing their tail every time.
MS actually got better over the last ten years. They too had a few nice acquisitions. But more importantly, they revitalized what was a pretty dead development strategy. Github was critical. The attitude towards Linux and the complete 180 on open source in general was critical. MS did quite a few things right under Nadella.
> They don't have any interesting new products.
None of these companies do.
Replies
> what the hell did they do in the last ten years?
Having the best people and knowing how to use them effectively are two very, very different things
> if Google and Meta got the best people, what the hell did they do in the last ten years?
Sure, these companies have made lots of money, but what have they done?
I actually do believe these companies have "the best people." I'm pretty sure they're just paid a lot less and having a difficult time advancing to staff engineer. Promoting people who are good at politics and being a yesman rather than a "does-good-work-man". For all our leetcoding, our "just make it work" mentality, and "we're going to do 10 interviews and take 3 months so that we can ensure we get the best people" I'm pretty sure we've done a really terrible job at it all. Maybe they are getting the best people, but then just putting them in handcuffs until they give up. Or maybe it's just all politics and no one actually cares about building a god damn product, and no, the stock does not count as a product and it is embarrassing that I even have to clarify this.
[0] While impressive it is still out if this will be profitable and if it'll be positive. It's unclear yet, unlike the other things. Read the rest of what I wrote...
> if Google and Meta got the best people, what the hell did they do in the last ten years?
Google has a dozen services with > 1 billion users a month. Google in 2010 had only one
> MS actually got better over the last ten years.
Some someone who (still) uses Windows I have to disagree. The gradual enshittification of Windows over the last ten years is infuriating.
Google search became less effective (imo) but probably more profitable.
Google hired the greatest minds to avoid competition that threatened googles monopoly on the search money printer
I am .NET dev and made my living on MSFT stack.
I would not say it was 180 turn on open source, more like 160 or 170 ;).
Just enough so they can steer people into using Azure but not so much to still have Visual Studio leads throwing wrenches into open source source wheels to stay relevant.