Barnes TechI thought this was a really great article about how Google has lost it’s way as of late, from Business Insider How Google Lost its Way.
As I’ve written several times, Google has been repeatedly and needlessly shooting themselves in the foot over the last few years with so many different things. No one trusts them to manage a product because they are so trigger happy about killing things off, and don’t seem to take anything seriously outside of their advertising business.
As mentioned in this article, the stock value of Google has significantly gone up under Sundar, but I honestly believe the company is in a really bad place right now. He seems like a sharp guy, and personally I honestly kind of like him as a person, but after these repeated problems as a company I’m not sure he’s the right person to take them out of their current state.
Most of Google’s stumbles over the last few years shouldn’t have been a huge deal, though I would argue the sentiment because of them kind of snowballs in people’s perception of the company. Most people I talk to either don’t trust Google because of privacy (totally valid) or because they don’t think Google can be trusted with a product someone might care about (also valid).
There are two pretty big problems right now that put Google in a tough spot. First, they were clearly caught completely off guard by what has happened with AI since ChatGPT. They literally invented this kind of AI, and by nearly every measure were in the lead in AI for years, but they have clearly squandered that lead. Sure, they have listed a few reasons why that’s the case, primarily around safety, but the fact that they are still so far behind is a problem. Not to mention, even after slowing down for safety, when they do launch something it has had some pretty significant problems.
Not only is Google behind in AI as a product, but I think the recent AI tools are honestly the first time in decades that there has been any real threat to Google’s search dominance. Bing has seen significant growth since adding Copilot to their product, though it’s still a small fraction of the market, but other tools such as Perplexity AI offer a very compelling alternative. I will write more about Perplexity AI shortly, but for me it is the first tool to make me replace Google in my daily usage, which is significant for me. The current iteration is likely not going to work for everyone in the world, but it’s a crack in the glass surrounding Google’s search dominance, and unfortunately as outlined in the Business Insider article, they are not doing enough to diversify their revenue outside of that. Every interesting new project they have they half ass, then cancel without warning.
The other problem is the company culture. The article goes in to more detail, but there is clearly a culture problem at Google and the employees are not happy. The once safe cushy jobs at Google are not seeming so safe, and there is a lot of discontent within the organization that does not seem to be being addressed very effectively, at least from the outside.
To me it falls in the same category, but to see more cultural issues at Google going back for years, you should check out Tony Fadell’s book, Build. Tony worked at Apple for years on several ground breaking products, then started Nest which sold to Google, and he goes in to some detail about how that basically sucked all the life that made Nest unique and great out of the company. It’s not hard to see that the innovation on Nest has essentially hit a brick wall since being acquired, which is extremely unfortunate.
All of this personally frustrates me because I really like a lot of what Google does. I vastly prefer Google Workspace over Microsoft 365, but I find myself wishing more and more that productivity platforms weren’t such a duopoly. I wish there was a 3rd platform that was really truly competing with those two, because honestly neither choice is great at the moment, but there aren’t any great alternatives for most companies out there. I also like Chrome, I loved Stadia, Google Fiber has been absolutely incredible. If they could just get their shit together, I think they could get back to greatness.