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by agloeregrets 1339 days ago
> More than once, Steve did cut some projects that were close to finish and you just had to go along since no one had a say in it, except Steve.

You know, this is actually a rather good thing. So many companies are just bloated with projects that they want to see through just to see them through and they make zero sense in the grand scheme of the company. If you have a single person responsible for everything that can just make the hard choices and be the bad guy it is much more healthy for the whole....assuming that person cuts the right things and makes the right choices.
1 comments
nr2x 1339 days ago
This is why Sundar is a nice guy but shit CEO.
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cloudking 1338 days ago
Well he did cut Stadia, which had a sizable team working on it.
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seabrookmx 1338 days ago
The fact that Stadia even launched was a failure.

The most basic of market research would tell you that in gaming, content is king. And with Google's track record of cancelling products, nobody would trust what they offered even if it was vastly technically superior.

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pjmlp 1338 days ago
Not only content, go check GDC talks from Google.

While other platform vendors have technical stuff, some of it deep dives into their technology stack, Google's ones are mostly about Play Store, KPIs, and when technical, very superficial, where a blog post would be enough.

How can a studio thrust such company into having what it matters to launch a AAA tile, while being asked to rewrite for their platform.

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tobyjsullivan 1338 days ago
Honestly, I don't know if that's a totally fair take. I purchased exactly one game on stadia and have zero regrets (particularly since I'm apparently getting a refund - but that's a bonus, really). I was definitely the target market and it was, in theory, the perfect product for me.

The only problem is I may have been the only person in the target market so that wasn't going to work financially... And even I was going to have an exceptionally low LTV at maybe one game purchase per year (or less). And if they charged a monthly subscription, I'd never do it. So, yeah, terrible business.

But Google's track record wasn't a showstopper for me on a toy. It's different for business stuff like GCP.

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nr2x 1338 days ago
Stadia should either not have been released, or vastly better supported. Sundar took the middle route of saying yes to the idea, then letting the accountants run it into the ground. Worst of all worlds.
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ksec 1338 days ago
>This is why Sundar is a nice guy but shit CEO.

Sadly this was not the sentiment at the time when Google announced their new CEO.

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nr2x 1338 days ago
He’s a ghost, the company has zero vision.

Meta is a shitshow, but I’ll give Zuck credit for at least have A vision of *something*.

Sundars vision is to keep Larry and Sergei’s money machine humming along. That’s it. That’s the goal, cover the costs of the founders private islands by letting the CFO make all the real decisions

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