Why Google’s Troubles Run Deep

This may be the only thing (archive.org) I’ve ever read that made me actually want to work at Google.  First off, ignore the stupid framing and scroll down to the actual content.
Let me pick some quotes.

Writing about Amazon: “Organizing into services taught teams not to trust each other in most of the same ways they’re not supposed to trust external developers”

Or writing about a fundamental truth: “Accessibility has an evil twin who, jilted by the unbalanced affection displayed by their parents in their youth, has grown into an equally powerful Arch-Nemesis (yes, there’s more than one nemesis to accessibility) named Security. And boy howdy are the two ever at odds.”

But then getting to Google’s deepest fundamental tragic flaw: “one last thing that Google doesn’t do well is Platforms” … “product is useless without a platform”  …  “.Google+ team took a look at the aftermarket and said: “Gosh, it looks like we need some … Let’s go contract someone to, um, write some… for us.”  … “Any teams that have successfully internalized the notion that they should be externally programmable platforms from the ground up are underdogs” … “The problem is that we’re a Product Company…”

ok, nevermind.  But,  I think it’s shockingly exactly right and in the long run it’s not a bad reason to short Google.

If I’ve peak’d your interest read the whole thing (see archive.org now)

I suspect this says something about  Hal Varian’s status in the senior leadership.  I presume he understands this.  But maybe not how fundamental it is.

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