Rattle wrote:

At this point, Google has more brains in one place than anyone can possibly know what to do with. What are they going to do? I picture a situation where they become so dense they fall in on themselves in some giant think-tank black hole. Unless they can keep all these people busy, they are going to simply be well paid bored people. That might have unintended negative effects. Either that, or Google is on its way to become a monastery like church of technology.

There's another alternative... think-tank supernova. All kinds of stuff starts spewing off in all sorts of directions until the whole thing explodes and wipes out everything with 100 miles, but leaving wreckage to build all kinds of new things out of.

Rattle wrote:

Behemoth search engine Google signaled an even further climb to the top of the Internet mountain Thursday with its announcement that Vint Cerf, one of the founders of the Internet, is joining the company as its 'chief Internet evangelist.'

This is some kind of milestone.

At this point, Google has more brains in one place than anyone can possibly know what to do with. What are they going to do? I picture a situation where they become so dense they fall in on themselves in some giant think-tank black hole. Unless they can keep all these people busy, they are going to simply be well paid bored people. That might have unintended negative effects. Either that, or Google is on its way to become a monastery like church of technology.

I've heard both good and bad things about their culture. I don't buy fully into either take on it. Its going to be interesting to see what happens. I think they have the integrity to keep trying to follow their "don't be evil" mantra, but can they? Not doing what you are capable of is a form of evil, because you hold the resources back from the rest of the world. Its a page from Microsoft, and hopefully not the one Google is flipping to.

Well, I wouldn't get too excited about hiring Cerf. The guy is a good guy and all, but he's a bit of a whore when it comes to this sort of thing. I realize that when you're the father of something, you basically have a free ticket to do whatever you want. But you don't see Tim Berners-Lee doing this shit. You only seem to see Cerf and Alan Kay trying to one up each other on who has the cushiest job at the hottest stock at the moment. So far, Cerf's done a much better job.

As for compiling all of those brains into one place, that's unsustainable. First, consider the dynamics:

Google has a shitload of cash. More than it can possibly know what to do with. The funny thing about cash when you have a lot of it? You tend to waste it on shit. Why worry about what you're spending? You've got plenty! This dynamics makes people lazy and unfocused on profitability. That tends to spell death, especially if allowed to fester in the culture for a long time and then something bad happens (like a market disappears). Even if you were diligent about managing your cash, it's still very hard work and it's very hard to create a reasonable return on it. Look at Microsoft or even Apple. Microsoft had to finally cave in and give investors a dividend because they couldn't figure out with all of their brains what to invest that money in that could yield a high enough return to make people happy. Google is now managing more cash than most VC funds have. That can be a significant drain on resources and decision making.

Speaking of decision making, I've got to believe that Rattle's gaze into the future is probably correct. All organizations have political battles. All organizations have ten... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

Rattle wrote:

Behemoth search engine Google signaled an even further climb to the top of the Internet mountain Thursday with its announcement that Vint Cerf, one of the founders of the Internet, is joining the company as its 'chief Internet evangelist.'

This is some kind of milestone.

At this point, Google has more brains in one place than anyone can possibly know what to do with. What are they going to do? I picture a situation where they become so dense they fall in on themselves in some giant think-tank black hole. Unless they can keep all these people busy, they are going to simply be well paid bored people. That might have unintended negative effects. Either that, or Google is on its way to become a monastery like church of technology.

I've heard both good and bad things about their culture. I don't buy fully into either take on it. Its going to be interesting to see what happens. I think they have the integrity to keep trying to follow their "don't be evil" mantra, but can they? Not doing what you are capable of is a form of evil, because you hold the resources back from the rest of the world. Its a page from Microsoft, and hopefully not the one Google is flipping to.

For everyone who hasn't heard otherwise, I'm starting at Google tomorrow. So I'll have the inside story shortly :)