Google: Poked Painfully in Its Snout
March 15, 2023
The essay “Why Didn’t DeepMind Build GPT3?” identifies three reasons for Google getting poked in its snout. According to the author, the reasons were [a] no specific problem to solve, [b] less academic hoo haa at OpenAI, and [c] less perceived risk. My personal view is that Googlers’ intelligence is directed at understanding their navels, not jumping that familiar Silicon Valley chasm. (Microsoft marketers spotted an opportunity and grabbed it. Boom. Score one for the Softies.)
Google’s management team reacting to ChatGPT’s marketing success. The art was created via https://scribblediffusion.com/ who owns the creative juices required to fabricate this interesting depiction of Google caught in a moment of management decision making.
These reasons make sense to me. I would suggest that several other Google characteristics played a role, probably bit parts, but roles nevertheless.
Since 2006, Google fragmented; that is, the idea of Google providing great benefit as an heir to the world of IBM and Microsoft gave Google senior managers a Droit du seigneur. However, the revenue for the company came from the less elevated world of online advertising. Thus, there was a disconnect after the fraught early years, the legal battle prior to the IPO, and the development of the mostly automated systems to make sure Google captured revenue in the buying and selling and brokering of online advertising. After 2006, the split between what Google management believed it had created and the reality of the business was institutionalized. Google and smart software was perceived as the one right way. Period. That way was a weird blend of group think and elite academic methods.
Also, Google failed to bring direction and focus to its products. I no longer remember how many messaging services Google offered. I cannot keep track of the company’s different and increasingly oblique investment arms. I have given up trying to recall the many new product and service incubators the company launched. I do remember that Google wanted to solve death. That, I believe, proved to be a difficult problem as if Loon balloons, digital games, and dealing with revenue challengers like Amazon and Facebook were no big deal. The fragmentation struck me as similar to the colored particles tossed during Holi, just with a more negative environmental effect. Googlers were vision impaired when it came to seeing what priorities to set.
Plus, from my point of view Google professionals lacked the ability to focus beyond getting more money, influence, and access to the senior managers. In short, Google demonstrated the inability to manage its people and the company. The last few years have been characterized by employee issues and other legal swamps. The management method has reminded me of my high school science club. Every member was a top student. Every member believed their view was correct. Every member believed that the traditional methods of teaching were stupid, boring, and irrelevant. The problem was that instead of chasing money and closeness to the “senior managers”, my high school science club was chasing validation and manifestation of superiority. That was baloney, of course, but what do 16 year olds actually understand. Google’s management is similar to my high school science club.
Are there other factors? Sure, and these include a wildly fluctuating moral compass, confusing personal objectives with ethical objectives, and giving into base instincts (baby making in the legal department, heroin on a yacht with a specialized contractor, and March Madness fun in Las Vegas).
Who will chronicle these Google gaffes? Perhaps someone will input a text string into ChatGPT to get the information many have either ignored, forgotten, or did not understand.
Stephen E Arnold, March xx, 2022
Is It Groundhog Day? Googzilla Chases Its Tail
March 10, 2023
In the buzz of Code Red, Google has a management fix for the damage caused by Microsoft’s ChatGPT marketing attack. “Google Dusts Off the Failed Google+ Playbook to Fight ChatGPT” states:
Google’s ChatGPT panic seemed a lot like its response to Google+, and several employees relayed that same sentiment to Bloomberg. Just like with G+, the report added that “current and former employees say at least some Googlers’ ratings and reviews will likely be influenced by their ability to integrate generative AI into their work.”
Google+ (try and search that, Google search fans). Does Google Plus work? How about a combo of “Google+ Plus Orkut” as a query?
The write up passes along a quote by an unnamed Google wizard:
“We’re throwing spaghetti at the wall, but it’s not even close to what’s needed to transform the company and be competitive.”
My take on this reference to Google+ or Google Plus is:
1. The sources for this story are not Googley and, therefore, cannot appreciate the management brilliance
2. The Google is out of ideas; that is, the Code Red thing and idea that it will be smart software everywhere is a knee jerk reaction
3. Googzilla is chasing its tail; that is, senior management has not idea what to do and hits upon this idea, “Google+ or Plus was a success. Let’s do that again.”
Net net: Is it groundhog day at the Googleplex? Next question: What confidence does one have in groundhogs?
Stephen E Arnold, March 10, 2023
Google: Share Googlers As You Did in Kindergarten. No Spats over Cookies!
March 1, 2023
The 2023 manifestation of the Google is fascinating. There was the Code Red. There’s the Supreme Court and the European Union. There’s the anti-Microsoft Bing thing.
And now we have the kindergarten mantra, “Share, kiddies.” Sorry, I meant, “Share, Googlers.”
I read “Google Cloud Staff Asked to Share Desks in Real Estate Efficiency Drive.” The article reports as absolute real journalism:
Google has reportedly asked employees to begin sharing desks at several sites across the US as part of a “real estate efficiency” drive. Employees at Google’s cloud division will be asked to pair up with colleagues and alternate in-office shift patterns as part of the move…
How will this work in Kirkland and Seattle, Washington, Manhattan, San Francisco, and maybe TC3 or MP1? The write up explains:
“Most Googlers will now share a desk with one other Googler,” the documents state. “Through the matching process, they will agree on a basic desk setup and establish norms with their desk partner and teams to ensure a positive experience in the new shared environment.”
Have you been in a Google, DeepMind, Alphabet, or YouTube meeting? Ah, well, if the answer is “yes,” you will know that reaching agreement is an interesting process. If the answer is “no,” you can replicate the experience by visiting a meeting of the local high school’s science club. Close enough I would suggest.
I remember when:
- Tony Bennett performed in the Google cafeteria
- Odwalla (a killer health drink) filled fridges
- A car wash service was available in the parking lot on Shoreline Drive
Yes, I remember.
In 2023, the Google is showing its age (maybe maturity) after the solving death and Loon balloon era.
Reducing costs is a cookie cutter solution to management running out of ideas for generating new revenue. How many McKinsey or Booz, Allen consultants did it require to produce the idea of sharing a sleeping bag? A better question is, “How much did Google pay outside consultants to frame the problem and offer several solutions?
Googzilla is not dead. The beastie is taking steps to make sure it survives after the Microsoft marketing wild fire scorched the tail of the feared online advertising, relevance killed creature.
And Odwalla? Just have a New Coke? Oh, sorry. That’s gone too.
Stephen E Arnold, March 1, 2023
MBAs Rejoice: Traditional Forecasting Methods Have to Be Reinvented
February 27, 2023
The excitement among the blue chip consultants will be building in the next few months. The Financial Times (the orange newspaper) has announced “CEOs Forced to Ditch Decades of Forecasting Habits.” But what to use? The answer will be crafted by McKinsey, Bain, Booz, Allen, et al. Even the azure chip outfits will get in on the money train too. Imagine all those people who have to do budgets have to find a new way. Plugging numbers into Excel and dragging the little square will no longer be enough.
The article reports:
auditing firms worry that the forecasts their corporate clients submit to them for sign-off are impossible to assess.
Uncertainty and risk: These are two concepts known to give some of those in responsible positions indigestion. The article states:
It is not just the traditional variables of financial modeling such as inflation and consumer spending that have become harder to predict. The past few years have also provided some unexpected lessons on how business and society cope with shocks and uncertainty.
Several observations:
- Crafting “different” or “novel” forecasting methods will accelerate the use of smart software in blue chip consulting firms. By definition, MBAs are out of ideas which work in the new reality.
- Senior managers will be making decisions in an environment in which the payoff from their decisions will create faster turnover among the managerial ranks as uncertainty morphs into bad decisions for which “someone” must be held accountable.
- Predictive models may replace informed decisions based on experience.
Net net: Heisenberg uncertainty principle accounting marks a new era in budget forecasting and job security.
Stephen E Arnold, February 27, 2023
Another Grousing Xoogler: A Case Study Under Construction?
February 20, 2023
Say “Google” to me, and I think of:
[a] Philandering in the Google legal unit. See this story.
[b] A senior manager dead on a yacht with a “special” contractor and alleged concoctions not included in a bright child’s chemistry set. See this story.
[c] Solving death. See this story.
[d] An alleged suicide attempt by a high profile Alphabet professional fond of wearing Google Glass at parties and who suffered post traumatic stress when the love boat crashed. See this story.
[e] Google’s click fraud matter. See this story.
[f] Pundits “forgetting” that Google’s pay-to-play was an idea for which Google’s pre-IPO management paid about $1 billion to avoid an expensive legal hassle over alleged improper use of Yahoo, GoTo, and Overture technology. See this story.
I am not sure what you think about when you hear the word “Google.”
Image of trustworthy people generated by Craiyon.com. A dinobaby wrote this Beyond Search story and the caption for the AI generated image which I assume is now in for fee image banks with PicRights’ software protecting everyone’s rights.
“Former Googler Pulls Back the Curtain on a Bureaucratic Maze and Lambastes Bosses and Employees for Losing Sight of What’s Important” suggests that my associations are not comprehensive. A Xoogler wizard named Praveen Seshadri suggested, according to Fortune Magazine:
Google employees don’t go to work each day thinking they serve users or customers. Instead, they serve something internal to Google, be it a process, a technology, a manager, or other employees.
What about promotions, bonuses, and increasing advertising revenue? Not top of mind for Praveen it seems.
Googlers, he allegedly says, according to Fortune:
Instead, the focus is on potential risk, which is seen in “every line code you change” and “anything you launch,” resulting in layer upon layer of processes, reviews, and approvals.
Ah, ha. Parkinson’s Law applied to high school science club management methods, perhaps?
The Fortune write up states:
… today, Seshadri argues in his essay, there is a “collective delusion” within Google that the company is still exceptional, whenin fact most people quietly complain about the overall inefficiency. As a Google employee, “you don’t wake up everyday thinking about how you should be doing better and how your customers deserve better and how you could be working better,” he writes. “Instead, you believe that things you are doing already are so perfect that they are the only way to do it.”
I suppose I should add one more item to my list of associations:
[g] Googlers strugle to perceive the reality their actions have created. See this story.
What happened to Foundem, the French tax forms, and Timnit Gebru? A certain blindness?
Each week appears to bring another installment of the Sundar and Prabhakar team’s comedy act. I look forward to a few laughs from the group now laboring in Code Red mode.
Stephen E Arnold, February 20, 2023
Fixing Bard with a Moma Badge As a Reward
February 17, 2023
I read an interesting news item from CNBC. Yep, CNBC. The story is “Google Asks Employees to Rewrite Bard’s Bad Responses, Says the A.I. Learns Best by Example.” The passage which caught my attention immediately was:
Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s vice president for search, asked staffers in an email on Wednesday to help the company make sure its new ChatGPT competitor gets answers right. The email, which CNBC viewed, included a link to a do’s and don’ts page with instructions on how employees should fix responses as they test Bard internally.
Hypothetical Moma buttons for right fixes to Google Bard’s off-the-mark answers. Collect them all!
I don’t know much about Googlers, but from what I have observed, the concept “answers right” is fascinating. From my point of view, Googlers must know what is “right.” Therefore, Google can recognize what is wrong. The process, if the sentence accurately reflects the wisdom of Sundar and Prabhakar, is that Google is all knowing.
Let’s look at one definition of all knowing. The source is the ever popular scribe, disabled, and so-so poet John Milton, who described the Google approach to fixing up its smart software by Google wizards, poobahs, and wonder makers. Milton pointed out his God’s approach to addressing a small problem:
What pleasure I from such obedience paid,
When will and reason (reason also is choice)
Useless and vain, of freedom both despoiled,
Made passive both, had served necessity,
Not me. (3.103-111) [Emphasis added, Editor]
Serving necessity? Question: When the software and systems are flawed, humans must intervene … of necessity?
Will Googlers try to identify right information and remediate it? Yes.
Can Googlers determine “right” and “bad” information? Consider this: If these Googlers could, how does one explain the flawed software and systems which must be fixed by “necessity”?
I know Google’s senior managers are bright, but this intervention by the lesser angels strikes me as [a] expensive, [b] an engineering mess, and [c] demonstrating some darned wacky reasoning. But the task is hard. In fact, it is a journey:
… CEO Sundar Pichai asked employees to spend two to four hours of their time on Bard, acknowledging that “this will be a long journey for everyone, across the field.”
But the weirdness of “field” metaphor is nothing to this stunning comment, which is allegedly dead accurate:
To incentivize people in his organization to test Bard and provide feedback, Raghavan said contributors will earn a “Moma badge…”
A Moma badge? A Moma badge? Like an “Also Participated” ribbon or a scouting patch for helping an elderly person across Shoreline Drive?
If the CNBC write up is accurately relating what a senior Googler said, Google’s approach manifests arrogance and a bit of mental neuropathy. My view is that the “Moma badge” thing smacks of a group of adolescents in a high school science club deciding to create buttons to award to themselves for setting the chem lab on fire. Good work, kids. Is the Moma badge and example of Google management insight.
I know one thing: I want a Moma badge… now.
Stephen E Arnold, February 17, 2023
Google Wizards: Hey, We Knew But Did Not Intervene. Very Bard Like
February 15, 2023
I read two stories. Each offers a glimpse into what I call backing away and distancing. I think each reveals the failure of Google governance. You may disagree. That’s okay, particularly if the stories are horse feathers. My hunch is that there is a genetically warped turkey under the plumage.
The first item is from the increasingly sensational Insider. The story is “Google Didn’t Think Its Bard AI Was Really Ready for a Product Yet, Says Alphabet Chairman, Days after Its Stock Fell Following the Chatbot’s Very Public Mistake.” The write up pivots on information (allegedly 100 percent dead solid in the bull’s eye) provided by John Hennessy, the chairman of Alphabet. The chair person! What did this captain of the digital titan say? I quote from the write up:
“I think Google was hesitant to productize this because it didn’t think it was really ready for a product yet, but, I think, as a demonstration vehicle, it’s a great piece of technology….He added Google was slow to introduce Bard because it was still giving wrong answers.
From my point of view, isn’t the role of the Board of Directors, and specifically the Chair, supposed to provide what might be called governance guidance? Since this admission of “giving wrong answers” is made public after the disaster in a city where a great lunch is easy to obtain, I would suggest that the bowl of soupe a l’oignon was prepared from a bag of instant convenient food: Not particularly good but perfect for a high school science club snack.
The second item is from CNet, which has some experience with smart software. The article is “Computing Guru Criticizes ChatGPT AI Tech for Making Things Up.” And who is the computing guru? None other than Vint Cerf, one of the father’s of the Internet if I remember something I heard at a conference.
The CNet article reported as actual factual:
But, speaking Monday [February 13, 2023] at Celesta Capital’s TechSurge Summit, he did warn about ethical issues of a technology that can generate plausible sounding but incorrect information even when trained on a foundation of factual material. If an executive tried to get him to apply ChatGPT to some business problem, his response would be to call it snake oil, referring to bogus medicines that quacks sold in the 1800s, he said. Another ChatGPT metaphor involved kitchen appliances.
Then this allegedly accurate quotation from the father of the Internet and Google guru:
“It’s like a salad shooter — you know how the lettuce goes all over everywhere,” Cerf said. “The facts are all over everywhere, and it mixes them together because it doesn’t know any better.”
Did the Googlers crafting Bard run the demonstration by Mr. Cerf? Nope. The write up says:
Cerf said he was surprised to learn that ChatGPT could fabricate bogus information from a factual foundation. “I asked it, ‘Write me a biography of Vint Cerf.’ It got a bunch of things wrong,” Cerf said. That’s when he learned the technology’s inner workings — that it uses statistical patterns spotted from huge amounts of training data to construct its response. “It knows how to string a sentence together that’s grammatically likely to be correct,” but it has no true knowledge of what it’s saying, Cerf said. “We are a long way away from the self-awareness we want.”
It seems to me that if the father of the Internet is on staff, it would make sense to get some inputs.
Let’s recap:
- After the fact, the Chair of the Board points out known problems but does not invoke action based on the need for governance related to product performance. Seems like something slipped betwixt the cup and the lip.l
- After the fact, the father of the Internet points out that he was “surprised” that Google technology generated misinformation. Again … after the fact.
Is the company managed by responsible adults or individuals who believe themselves to be in a high school science club? Are Googlers indifferent to the need to get their act together before they take the show on the road.
I think the French could label either Googlers’ comment as observations offered in l’esprit de l’escalier. Accurate but not management.
Stephen E Arnold, February 15, 2023
Prabhakar in Paris: An Expensive Google Trip
February 13, 2023
Paris has good restaurants, and it has quite a few alert, well-educated people. So why did Google take the Prabhakar Smart Search Show to the City of Light? “Google Employees Criticize CEO Sundar Pichai for Rushed, Botched Announcement of GPT Competitor Bard” does not have an answer for me or for others either.
The write up states:
Staffers took to the popular internal forum Memegen [an in house Google thing] to express their thoughts on the Bard announcement, referring to it as “rushed,” “botched” and “un-Googley,” according to messages and memes viewed by CNBC.
But here’s the killer comment:
During Google’s Wednesday event, search boss Prabhakar Raghavan briefly shared some slides with examples of Bard’s capabilities. People tuning in expected to hear more, and some employees weren’t even aware of the event. One presenter forgot to bring a phone that was required for the demo. Meanwhile, people on Twitter began pointing out that an ad for Bard offered an incorrect description of a telescope used to take the first pictures of a planet outside our solar system.
Is Prabhakar the Red Skelton of smart software infused search? By the way, the turning point for Googzilla was the interaction between the company and Dr. Timnit Gebru. If you have not read the stochastic parrot, you may find it interesting.
Polly want Google management to be organized? Squawk:
Dear Sundar, the Bard launch and the layoffs were rushed, botched, and myopic…. [now make parrot sounds]
The next high school reunion for Sundar and Prabhakar will be interesting indeed.
Stephen E Arnold, February 13, 2023
You Have Been Googled!
February 1, 2023
If the information in “Google Engineer Who Was Laid Off While on Mental Health Leave Says She Silently Mourned After Receiving Her Severance Email at 2 a.m.” a new meaning for Google may have surfaced. The main point of the write up is that Google has been trimming some of its unwanted trees and shrubs (Populus Quisquilias). These are plants which have been cultivated with Google ideas, beliefs, and nutrients. But now: Root them out of the Google greenhouse, the spaces between cubes, and the grounds near lovely Shoreline Drive.
The article states:
Neil said she had an inclination that layoffs were coming but assumed she would be safe because she was already on leave. According to Neil, she “bled for Google.” She said she met and exceeded performance expectations, while also enjoying her job. Google felt like a safe and stable environment, where the risk of being laid off was very low, Neil said. She described the layoff process as “un-Googley” and done without care. “Now I’m left here having to find a job for the first time in years after being on mental health leave in quite possibly one of the most difficult hiring situations and housing markets,” Neil said. Google won’t allow Neil to go back to her office to drop off her work laptop and other devices, she said. The company has told her to meet security somewhere near the office, or ship the items in a box, she added.
I want to suggest that the new term for this management approach be called “googled.” To illustrate: In order to cut expenses, the firm googled 3,000 employees. Thus, the shift in meaning from “look up” to “look for your future elsewhere” represents a fresh approach for a cost conscious company.
It may be a signal of honor to have been “googled.” For the individual referenced in the write up, the pain and mental stress may take some time to go away. Does Google management know that Populus Quisquilias has feelings?
Stephen E Arnold, February 1, 2023
Have You Ever Seen a Killer Dinosaur on a Leash?
January 27, 2023
I have never seen a Tyrannosaurus Rex allow a European regulators to put a leash on its neck and lead the beastie around like a tamed circus animal?
Another illustration generated by the smart software outfit Craiyon.com. The copyright is up in the air just like the outcome of Google’s battles with regulators, OpenAI, and assorted employees.
I think something similar just happened. I read “Consumer Protection: Google Commits to Give Consumers Clearer and More Accurate Information to Comply with EU Rules.” The statement said:
Google has committed to limit its capacity to make unilateral changes related to orders when it comes to price or cancellations, and to create an email address whose use is reserved to consumer protection authorities, so that they can report and request the quick removal of illegal content. Moreover, Google agreed to introduce a series of changes to its practices…
The details appear in the this EU table of Google changes.
Several observations:
- A kind and more docile Google may be on parade for some EU regulators. But as the circus act of Roy and Siegfried learned, one must not assume a circus animal will not fight back
- More problematic may be Google’s internal management methods. I have used the phrase “high school science club management methods.” Now that wizards were and are being terminated like insects in a sophomore biology class, getting that old team spirit back may be increasingly difficult. Happy wizards do not create problems for their employer or former employer as the case may be. Unhappy folks can be clever, quite clever.
- The hyper-problem in my opinion is how the tide of online user sentiment has shifted from “just Google it” to ladies in my wife’s bridge club asking me, “How can I use ChatGPT to find a good hotel in Paris?” Yep, really old ladies in a bridge club in rural Kentucky. Imagine how the buzz is ripping through high school and college students looking for a way to knock out an essay about the Louisiana Purchase for that stupid required American history class? ChatGPT has not needed too much search engine optimization, has it.
Net net: The friendly Google faces a multi-bladed meat grinder behind Door One, Door Two, and Door Three. As Monte Hall, game show host of “Let’s Make a Deal” said:
“It’s time for the Big Deal of the Day!”
Stephen E Arnold, January 27, 2023
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