| Actually, mehrdata, I think you might be reading a lot more into my statements than are actually present. While cultures evolve, I feel lucky we were able to make Reader within Google. I think that its being at Google made it a better product. When asked if I would build it in today's Google my answer was "no" given that Google is clearly uninterested in this project at the moment. Seems kinda obvious, really. I feel that epistasis more accurately guessed at the unpublished feelings I've had. The following are all things I think simultaneously right now... Google is a great company Google makes great things Google is not interested in pursuing Reader Communication around Reader's value (or how to improve it) within Google was unclear There may be confusion for inventor-types within Google on how to proceed in today's Google, though that's possibly remedied by better communication internally I'm glad you liked Reader. No need to guess about my actual thoughts about the past since I can summarize: Thanks to a great company with great people, Google Reader was made into a service that was many times better than I ever could have built alone in my apartment. There's no way to know if that success could have been achieved somewhere else. Everyone working on Reader knew it could have been cancelled at any time. It wasn't cancelled for a long time. I'm glad we got to experiment with the idea and the experience. |
The last feeling you mentioned is totally aligned with I was trying to say: to emphasize if you are an inventor type, you'd want to evaluate the risk of serving at the pleasure of the king carefully; it isn't necessarily a bad value proposition, but it certainly carries the risk of getting derailed or axed. Same goes for people who sell their companies to others; you cannot expect them to move forward with your initial vision.