[beezlebroxxxxxx]

It's not so bad to get caught flat-footed by something like ChatGPT (of course, it's not like Google didn't have AI stuff in development, for example that thing they showed once and then never brought up again when you could let Google Now talk to call reps), after all it seems like everyone was genuinely caught off guard by that first release of GPT and it's capabilities as a product.

The bigger issue for Google, at least in my view, seems to be that they don't seem capable of responding or competing in a real tangible way. Over the years they've seemingly lost the ability to rapidly and coherently release a product. Instead, you get this bizarre, incoherent, and spasmodic, response from all of these different product teams that don't seem to really work together all that well and don't have a clear product identity.

At this point, I doubt Google can turn the ship around. The company is just a gigantic behemoth of petty fiefdoms that will go the way of the Carolingian empire.

[the_snooze]

My totally uninformed outsider view is that Google lacks leadership that can set a direction and follow through with it. They're no longer capable or interested in shaking up the environment like they did with Gmail. I understand that Google is a large mature company now, but they also seem to be uninterested in steady-handed long-term maintenance of a lot of their products either.

I don't see any vision in Google's products other than "ad money printer go brrrr."

[ethbr1]

As has been said, a company's products end up mirroring its internal org/cooperation structure.

By that metric, measured against Google's recent product releases, Google's org/cooperation structure is broken.

It's tired to reiterate the 'launch and abandon product for promotion' incentives, but it also seems to go higher up.

Individual teams at Google are amazing, and build amazing features, but the company as a whole whole seems incapable of knitting those features together into a coherent product.

[crowbahr]

I worked with great developers at Google during my short stint there (part of the Jan 23 layoffs) but the management structure gets so thick and tangled once you get above feature teams.

[onemoresoop]

> At this point, I doubt Google can turn the ship around. The company is just a gigantic behemoth of petty fiefdoms that will go the way of the Carolingian empire.

Microsoft was in a bad shape too but they did turn the ship around when Ballmer left. Not sure whether MS was better entrenched than Google is but what seems to me is that Google need a drastic leadership change. Or they could be milking whatever they have and eventually go the way of the dodo.