[dude_abides]

It's fascinating to be able to see generational power shifts in such short cycles of time. I still vividly remember the days when M$ could never do anything wrong, and only a few years later, an upstart Google became the next M$, and Facebook the next Google, and so on. Old timers may also remember the IBM to M$ power shift, which played out over multiple decades.

[wutbrodo]

I don't know that Facebook ever took over from Google in terms of reputation. There was a brief period during which they were being extremely competitive with salary, but Facebook has never inspired the excitement (and trust) that systematically attracted large swathes of top talent. The reputation of Google was idealistic and awesome for a long time and then it shifted towards the more traditional MS-corporate-evil thing. Facebook pretty much started out with a reputation for being ruthless and "evil", which has a real effect on how excited talent gets about working for your company.

[TillE]

Facebook was super cool as a service for a couple brief years when they were serving only college students. But yeah, I don't think they've ever been well liked as a company. In many ways they're the modern AOL.

[wutbrodo]

Yea I was in one of the (relatively) earlier groups of users since I was in college when they were college-only. I loved it when it was photo-sharing and event planning, but never got into (and still have never used) any of the other features they started adding. It's only recently that enough of my friends use FB messenger that I've started checking it once every day or two.

[boomzilla]

This might be totally off base, but I can see the parallels in the shift of business in these companies:

1. IBM: main business used to be hardware, but now mostly IT services. This, believe it or not, is the most stable business. It's really hard to switch to another service provider for stuff your whole company relies on: payroll, inventory management, HR, etc.

2. Microsoft: main business used to be software, but moving to infra/productivity services. This is also as sticky as IBM's offering.

3. FB/Google: main business is selling advertisements, still looking for something to move to. If history repeats, it'll be some kind of services, but the multi-billion dollar question is, for what?

[minthd]

Google's move looks kinda like IBM's - being the technology partner in mutually beneficial tech projects. The only difference is the profit sharing arrangement and the risk/vision.

[gyandeyaar]

Could you explain how Facebook might be the next Google? Facebook's scope just doesn't seem as wide-ranging as that of the other companies you mention.