[Zigurd]

How is that different from everything after Google Search. Alphabet is even structured around the idea of not being able to pick winners. I can discern some long term strategy in Android Automotive and Waymo, but nothing is sacred when it comes to cutting off products that are not growing.

[KoftaBob]

It's one thing to say that Sundar hasn't led Google to innovate much in his tenure (I agree there), but to say Google hasn't picked any winners since Google Search?

- Gmail (largest email service at 1.5B users)

- YouTube (by far the biggest video sharing platform)

- Android (most used operating system in the world by number of devices)

- Google Maps (maps service with the largest userbase)

- YouTube TV

- The whole Google Drive Suite

- Chromecast/Android TV

- Chromebooks (made huge inroads in the k-12 education space)

[Zigurd]

What I mean by "not picking winners" is that Google admits they can't foresee, for example, the acquisition of YouTube turning into a first-tier social network. Just like they could not foresee Orkut and G+ not becoming successful social networks.

[KoftaBob]

Fair, though it seems more like Google just got in their own way with G+ by keeping it invite only for waaaaay too long.

[throwntoday]

> Just like they could not foresee Orkut and G+ not becoming successful social networks.

They put minimal effort into their products and prematurely sunset them if they don't perform well enough. Their organization is either so fragmented or toxic that they launch products that are competing against eachother.

It really does seem like there are only morons at the helm. A company with as much resources as Google should not continue to fail so badly. My suspicion is as Jobs said of Apple during his time away, the company is being totally run by the product guys not the engineers.