Strange, I always thought of Hooli as Yahoo, but that might be because I know a lot of programmers who used to work at Yahoo and have heard the dysfunctions first hand over beer more.
I think that's the point. Hooli is a stand-in for any large tech company, and I don't think they mean to specifically single out google.
Sure, "Hooli search" and "Hooli phone" seems like a dead ringer for Google, but then I could easily point to the whole Nucleus thing and say "well duh, it's Dropbox!" Or I could look at Gavin Belson's extremely cut-throat persona and say "well duh, it's Amazon/Apple!"
I think the show does a pretty good job of not singling out any particular large tech company, but all of them in aggregate.
Sure, "Hooli search" and "Hooli phone" seems like a dead ringer for Google, but then I could easily point to the whole Nucleus thing and say "well duh, it's Dropbox!" Or I could look at Gavin Belson's extremely cut-throat persona and say "well duh, it's Amazon/Apple!"
I think the show does a pretty good job of not singling out any particular large tech company, but all of them in aggregate.