More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-01/google-talent-advantage-erodes-as-more-workers-doubt-ceo-vision <comment><USER3> Arguably, Google's best CEO was Eric Schmidt. He's the one that turned Google from a startup into an awesome tech company. But nobody ever accused him of having no vision. That's because vision was not his role. That role was for both founders who acted in a duo CTO role.

Looking at Google today, they have a CEO but no CTO and the founders seem to be not involved in day to day strategy of Google. So, the real problem is that their current CEO is not filling the CTO boots very well and that's a problem because there is no CTO. It's showing. Google's strategy is fine from a financial point of view but less so from a technical point of view.

A bit like MS under Balmer. In fact, Google is starting to act a lot like MS a decade ago; including being arrogant, increasingly isolated, and somewhat tone deaf. I like them a lot less than 10 years ago. Of course Balmer added a whole other level of surreal to the mix that is thankfully missing here. Looking at MS today, they turned things around quite a bit and their current CEO is in an entirely different league than Google's CEO. That's the problem they need to fix. He's alright but not great. They need great. Pichar isn't. That's what those numbers are saying.

<comment><USER4> I do think that Google has a technical vision.

They want more people writing amazing content, and not SEO garbage.

They want to offer people focused answers to their questions.

They want to serve as your personal assistant.

They want people to really trust the first answer they get from Google.

And they want to be deeply integrated with your life.

The thing is: building AWS is more of an engineering project. Achieving Google's list is more of a research project - it's just far harder and less predictable.

Some will even say those goals require artificial general intelligence.

Assuming that's the case, the fact that Google leads the world in AI/ML , hints that they are doing a good job, right ?

<comment><USER5> To be fair, they only lead the world in AI because they bought DeepMind.

<comment><USER6> Photos, voice recognition/assistant, search, smart reply etc. are not made by DeepMind. Same for their tensor processor hardware and tensorflow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wait, our CEO has a vision?

Google company culture strongly erodes for two reasons:

De-facto retirement of Larry and Sergey and significant deepening of the reporting structure in the last few years (ie endless layers of middle management).

Both of these make consistent vision and values much harder to achieve. Recent Googlegeist just reflects that.

<comment><USER8> Also, Larry and Sergey got obsessed with useless and irrelevant things. (Flying cars? Robot butlers? Airship yachts? Glass?)

<comment><USER9> Those were pretty much the only reasons I continued to admire Google for as long as I did. They gave hope that the company might one day have a meaningful consumer revenue stream that isn't advertising.

They've gone for "cloud services" instead. Drastically, drastically, less inspiring — and also pretty competitive. What happens if Amazon drop their prices a bit?

<comment><USER10> AWS accounts for something like half of Amazon's operating revenue. It may not be exciting but it is a license to print money. Why wouldn't google (and MSFT, and anyone else with a big sunk investment in data centers) want to monetize their investment too?

Originally bezos was pissed off that Amazon's excess capacity for the Black Friday/Christmas surge was going to waste the other 50 weeks of the year. I suspect that's a pretty powerful motivation. But google absorbs huge spikes too (9/11 was one of the first harbingers of this) so it seemed inevitable, even back then, that they'd do it eventually.

Fighting the momentum of entire markets and hoping a muse settles on your shoulder isn't a sustainable business strategy for most companies, let alone very large public companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Don't discount the massive increase in the number of employees. The more people you add, the more the culture dilutes. It becomes impossible for employees to feel like they're part of single a tribe with a clear goal.

Factions develop, tensions mount, and you get angry employees leaking confidential information constantly. Most of the negative press the public has heard about Google in the past year is a direct result of leaks.

It just doesn't feel as "fun" anymore.

<comment><USER12> I used to work a corporate job in an investment bank with around 30k employees. The majority of those employees were politicking chameleons with little productive output and a disproportionate salary. I used to hope that large innovative tech companies were different. From what I hear on HN it's becoming clear that that's not the case. It's almost as if the "largeness" of a company allows the non productive people to hide within it, all while successfully siphoning off their sustenance.

<comment><USER13> I've had a similar feeling about how our society deals with people who don't fit in in this way (non-productive), and it's a fun thing to play around with in your head because in a loose way it undercuts a key selling point of organizing your society capitalistically like ours: during the cold war, it was like "yeah well you Soviets just give every lazy bastard some meaningless quasi-task in a widget factory or in some faceless ministry and go around telling the rest of the world there's no unemployment and you're building Utopia. We in the West, otoh, have purpose and let our people put themselves to better use!"

So your observation reminded me that our society has plenty of people on a similar sort of hidden dole: vast corporate structures with uncountable layers of non-productive paper pushers, with a very small proportion of employees setting the vision and another small bunch generating most of the value. A social welfare program by any other name ...

So like do large human groups just inevitably have some subset that doesn't quite fit (in terms of work and productivity) but who need taking care of so we semi-deny their existence ("no slackers here!") while we semi-throw'em a bone ("here's a paycheck, go look at Facebook for a few hours and fiddle with PowerPoint while I harass my secretary")?

<comment> xkcd-sucks > We in the West, otoh, have purpose and let our people put themselves to > better use!"

AKA people invent novel ways to support themselves when the alternative is starving in the street

<comment><USER13> Lol yes

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Google's seemingly endless new array of products with just as many being discontinued at any one time is an internet meme at this point. Often in threads when Google announced their latest hotness, potential customers are sarcastically guessing at how long until it is killed (some of those guesses ultimately turning out correct).

I've never worked at Google, but it looks like shambles from the outside. Kind of reminds me of a younger Microsoft back when three teams would create three competitive solutions to the same problem (although to Microsoft's credit they still support most of those to this day).

Google really needs to decide what it wants to be, what direction they're going in, and work together. I'm guessing there's some perverse incentives at play for some of this (e.g. promotions/bonuses for new stuff, nothing for updates to existing products, or other "boring" work).

<comment><USER15> If you take a step back, Google's launch & deprecate cycle for new products actually kind-of makes sense.

Internally, Google is not so different from an ecosystem of VC-funded startups. They try a lot of things. Some ideas work and others don't.

The alternative is to never ship new products out of fear of failure. Or, to indefinitely support everything, regardless of how tiny. Or, to wait so long to derisk a new product that they possibly miss out on a new market (I'm looking at you, HomePod).

At the end of the day, this strategy has worked out well for them, so why stop? For every failure like G+ or Allo, there's a success like Google Photos or Duo.

<comment><USER16> From a business perspective, Google's way to work with products makes totally sense, as you described. But - and that's that problem I have with Google - from a user perspective, their way to work is unprofessional. Why did this become an internet meme? Because all the projects they launch are launched with a lot of loud tam tam, they advertise them and for new users it clearly feels like this new product is here to stay - only to find out two years later that the product will be cut off. People start to use this new fancy app which is marketed to be the "next big thing". And then later some product manager thinks that it may be not worth to continue working on it.

IMO if Google really wants to try out new things, they should make these things invite-only to find out if they are working and how users interact with it, or clearly mark them as 'beta' or something like that. Google has a huge fan base and the internet is full of people excited to try out new things. But if users clearly see "hey, this is kind of a beta product, I am just testing this out" there would be way less disappointment if the product shuts down after a while.

<comment><USER17> Gmail was famously in beta for many years, long after it became an extremely important service.

<comment><USER16> I think Gmail is a good example for how it should be done, one of the few, if not the only good example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Google's fall from grace mirrors HP's and Xerox's. At some level, CEOs who do not share an altruistic vision espoused by the "rank-and-file" engineers who are more idealistic. I think in Xerox, they were called "toner heads".

When you suck out the soul, the remaining carcass will totter on for a couple more decades, and encomiums will be written to the "well-managed" company in business magazines, but no promising undergraduates will list it as their dream job, and somehow, that's what really matters.

<comment><USER19> There is no way MBA CEOs can ever do any good to these companies.

Their whole training is to convert high performance engineering places to minimum wage paying furniture assembly shops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Sundar is neither a founder nor has been a practicing Engineer. That's gotta hurt a company like Google which is mostly Engineering driven.

I guess Google at this point just keep churning through systems because Engineers are incentivized to show impact and rarely end up creating new good products.

Adding tons of new engineers is also probably hurting their overall quality and velocity.

<comment><USER21> I'm not a Googler but read that Pichai oversaw the growth of Chrome browser from minor player to the dominant position it has today. And he also oversaw Android's growth after Andy Rubin's departure [1].

While he may not have written code that's two world-leading consumer adoption stories. So many great engineers build products that never achieve great adoption. So aren't Pichai's accomplishments worthy of CEO-level promotion?

Recruiting a world-class team, motivating them to achieve such domination, managing their egos amid a huge company full of talented people, executing across the behemoth that is Google... all these are vital skills and as a company grows maybe more of what you need from a CEO than one who is the most talented engineer. (I may be wrong; just a thought).

[1] [https://www.businessinsider.com/how-sundar-pichai-rose-to- be...](https://www.businessinsider.com/how-sundar-pichai-rose-to-become-ceo- of-google-2014-10)

<comment><USER22> > oversaw the growth of Chrome browser from minor player to the dominant > position it has today. And he also oversaw Android's growth

Couple of personal observations-

Would it have been same if Chrome was not advertised on every google property and google intentionally breaking google properties on competitor browsers?

Also there was really no competition for android.

But not sure if the these two products were not world class then they would have worked.

<comment><USER23> Did you just forget Windows Phone ever existed? Also Palm and a few others.

And Chrome originally swept the world because it was just so much better (most faster) than everything else. That's why the tech industry migrated initially, and then the growth tactics probably just kept things moving to grab the number one spot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> For the sake of the employees and for the sake of the rest of us, I believe that Sundar Pichai is not CEO material at all. He should go or be pushed out, and Larry Page and Sergei Brin (or one of them) should take a stronger role and have a deeper engagement on many matters. Google has been doing well financially, but it has lost its soul (the one it had in its very initial years) and seems to be going around aimlessly as far as doing good things and doing the right things are concerned.

<comment><USER25> I dunno. I like Sundar. I like his straightforward style. Personally I think he's got it together a lot more than Larry and Sergey do. When Larry was the boss, I always felt like we were lurching. Sundar feels like high speed cruise.

Look this ship don't turn fast no matter who's at the helm. And it's not even clear it needs to. Maybe it's already sailing where Sundar wants it to (mad money + compelling products). As far as I can tell, public sentiment about Google is very different from tech/nerd sentiment about the same, and that's fine by me, because the public seems to like the company and its products. We are making money hand over fist with no end in sight. While our politics might not be progressive enough for the left fringe of Googlers (and I say this as a liberal myself), they are certainly not reactionary by any stretch.

I wouldn't expect a radical new idea to spring out of Google at any point in the future. It's too big for that. The folks with radical new ideas are working in their garages. And that's OK. Companies have life-cycles, like anything else, and Google-the-company is in the "mature adult" phase. It is refining and extending in the areas where it's strong. Occasionally it tries a new hobby, but it doesn't expect to make a career change. It _can 't_. It likes its day job (the best damn information-seeking web properties on the planet), and even if it got pretty good at something else, it's hard to picture a scenario where the productivity of that alternative comes close to the main business.

I guess this is the long way of saying that I don't see why the investors would want Sundar out. I don't see why Larry or Sergey would. And I don't see why most employees would either. We're all getting rich and mostly being treated well, and building things that broadly speaking make the world a better and more productive place. Those are all the people that get a vote, so I wouldn't bet on Sundar going anywhere soon unless he wants to.

<comment><USER26> |and building things that broadly speaking make the world a better and more productive place.

I strongly disagree with this sentiment, ease up on the kool-aid. Productive, maybe? Better, hell no.

<comment><USER25> Oh, because you disagree, I'm drinking the koolaid? Grow up and realize that your perspective and priorities are not universal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> 78% approval ratings seem pretty high to me. Am I the only one who thinks we may be looking for a pattern where none exists? A lot of factors like market conditions, news cycle etc. could lead to +/-10% swing in what is such an unofficial metric to begin with.

<comment><USER28> Agreed! Is this normal for Google? +-10% every year? The change % doesn't give us a lot of insight...these numbers in total seem much higher than the company surveys I've seen results for.

<comment><USER29> Typical numbers when I was there were usually in the high-80s to mid-90s on most of the satisfaction questions. A drop of +-10% was absolutely considered significant, as were numbers in the 70s.

I once made an internal G+ post that "voluntary response data measures liquidity, not satisfaction". When you have an organization that people can freely choose to join or leave, then you should _expect_ that any internal surveys will have very high satisfaction numbers - because anyone who is dissatisfied will simply _leave_ and drop out of the sample. Similarly, if you get consistently low numbers for satisfaction, that could be because the people in the sample have low liquidity - they can't easily go elsewhere.

This is why organizations like Congress, Comcast, and Facebook (users, not employees) have such perpetually low approval ratings - for most people stuck with them, there are simply no alternatives, and so they remain beholden to their decisions despite hating them. And similarly, Google employees have very high satisfaction ratings because it's relatively easy to get a job elsewhere or just not need a job at all as a Xoogler, and so anyone who dislikes it just leaves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> ur-whale Once upon a time, Google used to be run by engineer types.

When Larry and Sergey retired and handed the reins over to Sundar, a standard issue McKinsey drone whose technical contributions over the span of his entire career are close to nil, it was game over for the original Google culture.

In fact, there is a theory floating around that he was chosen because someone very smart at Google predicted the huge oncoming controversies around privacy, data collection, manipulative monopolistic practices, and how overly powerful Google was becoming in general.

Visionless, mild-mannered, bland, milquetoast, "we need to be incredibly thoughtful about this" Sundar was the perfect choice as a CEO to weather that particular storm, by staying under the radar as much as possible by projecting a "don't worry we're the good guys, see how inoffensive I am myself" image (as opposed to "I'm the CEO bitch" Zuck types).

Truth be told, the strategy has worked to a point: Google is in far less trouble than e.g. FB.

But there is a price to be paid by handing over the wheel to someone who was specifically chosen for how inoffensive and uninteresting he is.

<comment><USER30> You are saying Pinchai is a bad CEO but he was picked because he is talented enough to handle the exploding time bomb created by the previous "good" CEOs?

<comment><USER31> Best fall guy not really most talented.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Google's Achilles heel is search and ad revenue (80%). Which is sad because they've been trying to diversify and find another major source of income for 20 years now. If a better search engine comes along and people switch over, then google won't be able to maintain its empire and it could fold, or how would you like to pay $10 a month for a GMail and Google Maps combo access package? It could happen a lot easier and quicker than most people think.

<comment> ur-whale I think they're a lot stronger than you think. True, Search and Ads is still their bread and butter, but:

Their search engine is _really_ hard to replace, not just because of the quality, but also because of how ubiquitous it is.

YouTube is the second largest search engine on the planet and has the largest mindshare of any website on the internet.

Android is "the" platform pretty much everyone accesses the internet.

Cloud could do better (it's 3rd distant in the race against MSFT and AMZN), but nevertheless a huge opportunity.

Buffet and Munger were correct when they commented about Google saying they'd never seen a wider moat in their entire career.

<comment><USER33> > Their search engine is really hard to replace, not just because of the > quality, but also because of how ubiquitous it is.

For the web, yes. I'd argue it's not threatened by other search engines, though it is threatened by other players and indexes:

\- Apps. Google can't crawl apps, and people are getting used to the idea of finding information in separate indexes as opposed to a single universal one. Each app today has it's own search box, so if I'm looking for somewhere to eat I go to Yelp. A product? Amazon. If I'm looking for someone I open Facebook. If I'm looking for flights I open Kayak, Priceline or Expedia, etc).

> YouTube is the second largest search engine on the planet and has the > largest mindshare of any website on the internet.

I agree that YouTube is very strong.

> Android is "the" platform pretty much everyone accesses the internet.

I disagree here. People largely access the internet (as in, data from the internet) through apps, like I mentioned before (Yelp, Facebook, Amazon, Kayak, Expedia...). [1]. Moreover, in terms of OSes, you still iOS and Windows are still holding steadily to a decent chunk of important markets.

> Cloud could do better (it's 3rd distant in the race against MSFT and AMZN), > but nevertheless a huge opportunity.

I do agree here.

> Buffet and Munger were correct when they commented about Google saying > they'd never seen a wider moat in their entire career.

+1 on some things, but not so much on others IMO. At this point most tech companies have comparable moats. Amazon, Facebook, Apple-- also huge moats.

And that's the thing-- competing against "just another search company" they're definitely in no threat, but they're competing against companies about as moated as they are. Amazon beat them to the punch with voice assistants. Apple Music is taking market share like Google Music couldn't. ChromeOS still can't seem to crack the dominance Microsoft Windows has on laptops. They're a lot stronger than most people think, but their competition is too.

[1]: Fun fact, people browse the web a lot while using Facebook. This is somewhat tangential to my main point so putting it down here, but Facebook is actually a major web browser: [https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/06/facebook-is- now-a-major-mo...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/06/facebook-is-now-a-major- mobile-browser-in-u-s-with-10-market-share-in-many-states/)

<comment><USER34> I think you're a more sophisticated user. Most people would just google something like best [type of food] restaurant in [city]. They're not going to help specially for yelp stuff when it shows up on google anyways. If I want to find someone's Facebook, I search for their name and Facebook on google.

<comment><USER35> Yelp is for sophisticated users?

<comment><USER34> Perhaps sophisticated was the wrong word, but a lot of people who will never use yelp use google daily. That is what I was trying to express.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Among the FAANGs (btw I think Microsoft deserves to be included there now) I find Google to be at the bottom in terms of vision. It's morphed into the conservative, big co they were once fighting. It's kind of sad.

<comment><USER37> Come on, Facebook's vision is Frindster but 15 years later and Netflix is literally putting TV on the Internet, a Silicon Valley (I mean the show) worthy description.

<comment><USER36> Facebook is near the bottom with Google IMO. Netflix has totally flipped Hollywood and airing really interesting original content. That is something.

<comment><USER38> Google has totally flipped _the internet_. Or do you still know of a personal website that maintains a list of interesting links ordered by the topic?

<comment><USER36> They flipped it 20 years ago...talking about where these companies rank as far as current vision and innovation goes today in 2019.

<comment><USER39> They flipped it at least as early as 15 years ago in 2004 with with gmail, their acquisition of google maps, and in 2006 with their acquisition of youtube.

Actually I think you're basically right.

<comment><USER40> Android? Chrome?

<comment><USER39> Okay, fair points. 2007 and 2008 respectively. I'm not sure that changes much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Having read the article, only 54% of Googlers view their compensation is better than what they could get from another company. I find it surprising. Who else pays more than Google does? Can only think of Facebook, but even then not sure.

<comment><USER42> I used to work at another BigCorp (around $150,000/yr) and really thought Google pays competitively, but boy was I wrong. Here are two offers that I received recently:

1\. Small company: around $160,000/yr + equity

2\. Google: no exact number but I was told that for the level I was approved, the base is around $120,000/yr. Apparently my coding skills on a Google doc were equivalent to that of a new grad and they are really trying to low-ball me. Somehow they are under the assumption that I'm "dying" to work there.

If you interview at Google make sure to have other competing offers, otherwise you'll be up for a surprise. Also remember that although they'll tell you that the hiring committee looks at a candidate holistically, only the onsite interviews will dictate your level and the compensation. They don't seem to care what products you've built previously, years of experience, or education. How you code in a Google doc is what seems to matter.

<comment><USER34> Is there a better way of making sure someone can actually code? It's easy to take credit for past projects when it's unclear how much help you had or what part you played. Isn't the best way to judge a candidate asking them to create/produce something for you?

<comment><USER42> IMHO a better way would be:

\- A non-trivial take-home exercise and give them a week or two to complete. This should have higher weight on the decision instead of the "Google doc coding" as most likely that's the type of code they'll be shipping to production.

\- Use the onsite interviews to improve upon the exercise and/or to get into the nitty gritty details, and also to make sure this is the type of person people would enjoy working with.

\- Allow candidates to run the code and to look things up (even Einstein didn't remember how to do long division, he looked it up).

\- Give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they are not liars or thieves. If you end up having certain doubts, ask yourself why you have those doubts and take appropriate steps to remove doubts.

And let's be real. Do you think someone with X years of experience having worked at multiple companies (small and big corps) was hired because they couldn't code?

<comment><USER34> I personally hate take home tests that you aren't compensated for, but I see your point. As to your last point, depends on your definition of "couldn't code". I think we tend to give the hiring and HR at companies like google too much credit. Things still slip through the cracks, especially at an organization of that size.

<comment><USER42> One thing I do with take-home exercises after I'm done interviewing with a company is adapting them and then open-sourcing them (obviously removing identifying information about the company). This has really helped me and I have more side projects to show later on. With that said, I've gone above and beyond with the implementation of these exercises so typically many of them are worth open-sourcing.

<comment><USER43> Great Point. This is the right approach,as I have come to realize.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Doom. When it comes to culture plant the seeds early and enforce it with an iron fist of death, because it takes time for the consequences to manifest and once they do its too late, like rabies. Resolution to culture problems take just as much effort and time to resolve as the neglect and time it took for them to set in.

I have the perspective of going through something like this on a microscopic scale right now. An employee under a manager underneath me launched and EO investigation of toxic leadership fueled on rumors and hearsay. Perception is reality (even if it isn't). I was spared the stupidity of this nonsense because the complainant made a mistake: they didn't confront their leadership before making a formal complaint. They deprived me, as a leader, the opportunity to resolve (or intervene on their behalf) the problem. Even still the corroding behaviors have set in from the bottom up corrupting the local culture of the group.

<comment><USER31> Things sounds toxic. Under your leadership you have a chance to change this. Use the situation to improve things for everyone else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Little bit click baity. Still close to 80% employees support him, which is a huge success for a company as large and as diverse as Google with a lot of employees who are emotionally invested. Sundar is doing fine

</comment><comment><USER46> I used to love them, now I avoid them like the plague. If possible I do not use any Google products.

<comment> move-on-by Yeah me too. They've made it a lot easier on me by killing off the two products that I still enjoyed, inbox and hangouts. Thanks Google! You made the transition easier then expected. Even if I did have a shred of trust for google, why would I invest myself into a new product of theirs? They'll just kill it off

<comment><USER47> They broke my YouTube account a number of years ago in an attempt to force Google+ across their systems and artificially inflate user numbers.

Yesterday I got an email from them saying that they are nuking my Google+.

I will always remember that series of events as one of the most hostile acts of aggression against users that I have ever experienced.

That changed my perspective of Google as a company and I'm not sure that they can ever regain the positive perception that they lost due to those hostile actions.

Now their dominance with Chrome is leading them to make similarly hostile actions: breaking webaudio, attempting to "do away with URLs," forcing unwanted shit on our Internet.

Arrogance is the right word for it.

<comment><USER48> I don't know why this is downvoted. Seems legitimate to me.

<comment><USER47> I must have struck a nerve.

I use the Brave browser now. I think other people should too. Downvotes welcome.

<comment><USER49> I'd rather recommend Firefox. With Brave you're still buying into the Blink/Chromium hegemony.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Is this a bit similar to what Microsoft went through in the early 2000s?

<comment><USER7> All corporations grow, decay and rot on the similar trajectories, so in this sense it's similar.

I worked at MS at this time, and I think BigG now is like MS in 2003 roughly speaking. I'm waiting for miniggl to appear, then the circle will be complete. :)

<comment><USER50> Having worked at both. Google is far far ahead. Any young dev reading this, you will get good engineering foundations at Google that will keep you in good stead for the future.

<comment><USER29> People said the same thing about Microsoft in the late 1990s - The Windows NT kernel was supposedly a thing of beauty, while Cairo was way ahead of its time. Problem is, computer science advances, so the type of programming that was state-of-the-art in the 1990s paled in comparison with what Google developed 10 years later. And the Google stack of 2003 is remarkably outdated by 2018 standards.

As a Xoogler I use & value the engineering chops I learned at Google every day, but I'm not naive enough to think that'll last forever. There are some really exciting developments in multiple areas of computer science - <USER2> blockchains, Rust, GPGPU, serverless - that Google is poorly positioned to take advantage of, as well as others (machine learning, search, big data, distributed systems, capability security) that Google has historically been the market leader at but that are rapidly being commoditized by very high quality open-source projects.

<comment><USER50> Right Google is losing in ML or not caught up to speed ? I don't know when you left but even outside Google it's pretty much known that ML innovation is Google's strength.

Two big teams use Rust at Google in production. I guess Google didn't make the TPU or Tensor Flow as well. Take your pitch forks out but once you're done have a look at some facts.

<comment><USER51> They kicked off the deep learning trend when they bought deep mind I guess. Otherwise what innovation are you talking about?

Switching from KNN to DL in machine translations is impressive as a technical achievement ... but not really an innovation, and I doubt all this "innovation" impacts their bottom line in any way.

<comment><USER52> > Otherwise what innovation are you talking about?

Quantity: Google has the highest number of deep learning papers accepted into top conferences among all institutions, even when papers from DeepMind are not counted in Google's.

Quality: Transformer and the recent BERT have, pun intended, transformed the entire NLP field. Batch normalization is now a staple of all neural networks, as are its descendants instance normalization, group normalization, etc.

These are just on top of my head. Google may have done many things wrong these days, but it definitely has not lost any edge in machine learning.

<comment><USER7> While I don't know real numbers, back of the enveloper estimations for hardware costs alone (based on GCP TPU/GPU pricing) give order of hundreds thousands for BERT, and tens of millions for AlphaGo and friends. Notice how very few organizations in the world are in position to commit these kind of resources to AI problems, and that only Google and China are choosing to do so.

<comment><USER52> And? Most scientific breakthroughs after the World War II require expensive equipments and materials. That fact doesn't make the achievements from Google, from Bell Labs, from CERN, from Fermilab less innovative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> The main thing that Google has meant to me over the past few years is a company that has had all the fun sucked out of it and become, from its extreme power, a politicized environment where its decisions reshape the world so much that an endless army of people from outside the company want to control what's going on within it. I think Larry and Sergei got sick of that and went on to other things and let Sundar handle the B.S.

</comment><comment><USER54> The scales are maybe falling off the eyes of the google workers.

The search ads are the alpha and the omega of google. The thousands of employees doing non-ad work are just a cover to make the employees think that this is a change the world mission and flying cars and contact lenses that read your blood pressure... all nonsense. They need smart people to keep the ad machine running and to keep tuning it. The rest is all diversion.

Where is my balloon internet !?!

<comment><USER55> part of that initiative was to bring wifi to developing countries which is being achieved in part by [https://station.google.com/](https://station.google.com/) in india,nigeria,mexico,indonesia,thailand

the balloon thing was also only for developing countries only,Loon has become it's own thing [https://www.wired.com/story/alphabet-google-x-innovation- loo...](https://www.wired.com/story/alphabet-google-x-innovation-loon-wing- graduation/)

and is going to start in kenya - [https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44886803](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44886803)

<comment><USER56> To serve ads...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I think the decline has to do with us not trusting Google anymore. They used to be this cool company that everyone wanted to work at but these days they are just looked at as this big behemoth that has taken control of the internet, harvesting peoples private data and flirts with the oppressive Chinese government. It is not fun to see the things you help built being misused like that. It was never their attention.

</comment><comment><USER58> What is Sundar's vision? I'm not quite sure and I think I'm pretty aware of google's goings on through media and such.

<comment><USER59> According to some search results ... it's

> "Looking to the future, the next big step will be for the very concept of > the "device" to fade away. Over time, the computer itself — whatever its > form factor — will be an intelligent assistant helping you through your day. > We will move from mobile first to an AI first world"

[https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/technology/sundar-...](https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/technology/sundar- pichai-outlines-his-vision-for-google-six-things-the-indian-origin-ceo-said- in-a-letter/245479/)

<comment><USER60> Not his vision. Jeff dean, might be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I think, sometimes, people at the top forget that there are a lot of talented people who got the company where it is today. THey believe they can reorganize however they want and it will turn out well, but ultimately you have to keep attracting top talent and motivating them. It is harder for tech people to get motivated about ad sales than about cool tech (heck, that's why a lot of startups are terrible at sales). It may be their main revenue source and source of growth, but it probably doesn't fire up the imagination as much as what they used to do.

Edit: Although, I do believe they still do a lot of cool things, and that is a strong point, but it seems ... different than before.

</comment><comment><USER62> I thought every CEO's ultimate vision was to increase shareholder value. Does the vision of company really come from one person's declarations? Just look at what the company is doing as a whole and you can get a picture of what the company's vision is. In the case of Google how can you can conclude otherwise that the vision of the company is domination in any arena possible to dominate?

<comment><USER63> > every CEO's ultimate vision was to increase shareholder value

That is like saying every organism's ultimate vision is to flood the world with offspring carrying its own genes. It is true in some sense... But it is also good that it fades into the background in the day-to-day because the things you (supposedly) do to get there have much better consequences than just trying to go directly for the goal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Is it better to have your approval at 78 percent down from 88 percent a year ago, or to have it at 60 percent, up from 50 percent a year ago?

</comment><comment><USER65> Each about 4 years there is a new tech wave. Google back then did very well on search, video, mobile. Missed social, cloud, voice assistant - the last 2, being tech-wise exactly up the Google alley, were missed because of vision and execution deficiencies so no surprise that the great Google engineers would be questioning their leadership.

</comment><comment><USER66> Sundar is a consumer products guy. Great for social and chrome and android. he's not a cloud guy or a tech infra guy. He also is completely unable to handle challenging situations head on and will cancel meetings if something is even remotely controversial. that's a sign of a poor leader.

</comment><comment><USER67> Google's hiring quality is so low now a days. I knew how they used to only hire the best engineers. You could spot the difference between a Googler and others. But now I see almost anyone getting a job offer. I got one too :)

Formula for large tech companies growth is to just scale by adding engineers.

</comment><comment><USER68> Don't worry folks, as long as you've got www.google.com as your homepage, and you're using chrome or an android device (or both), and you are sharing that sweet sweet data with the GOOG. They're not going anywhere... ever.

</comment><comment><USER69> Another classic case of [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle)

</comment><comment><USER70> Seems like it would be pretty difficult to define a vision for such a large company with so many diverse products. Still I'd be interested to know what employees there think.

</comment><comment><USER71> The article is actually quite alarmist. If you take a look at the actual figures, approval is in the high 70s, and should not be really cause for concern.

</comment><comment><USER72> The drops in confidence are notable, but no net year-over-year difference in how many say they are leaving soon. That's interesting.

<comment><USER73> wondering the same thing... it also surprised me that 89% employee take the survey and seemed caring about the vision so much

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> More accurate headline, "Google's CEO still has incredible employee support, despite year over year dip".

</comment><comment><USER75> Like if their CEO has any vision. It feels that the role is purely ceremonial and product managers rule everything.

</comment><comment><USER76> if it's survey anonymous how do they know 89% of googlers participated in this survey? and if it's not anonymous what's the point if these skewed results sortability approving management by majority? /s

unless it was paper survey and each employee got one sheet of paper

</comment><comment><USER77> >89% of the company took the poll

More changed minds or simply more minds reporting?

</comment><comment><USER78> I think since day one it was clear that sundar has no vision. he has execution and he is very good at it. vision? none. waymo and all other crazy bets are larry's legacy. sundar is no satya, I tell ya that much.

</comment><comment><USER79> Wow, those are significant declines.

It'll be interesting to see how Google reacts, and if the numbers trend back up.

</comment><comment><USER80> Google is trying they best to help humanity and government to surveillance they citizens.

Why now all the hate suddenly for company that is doing this since from start ?

Like Google CEO testify "we try our best" who could say Google is evil after this comment ?

</comment><comment><USER81> _cries in money_

</comment><comment><USER82> i wonder if they'll add the ceo to their blacklists.</comment>


Ask HN: How to prepare a tech interview without a formal CS education? - <AUTHOR> I basically learned hacking sites and apps through hackathons, and just imitating and googling the heck outta stuff.
I build primarily my websites through JavaScript/HTML/CSS - with PHP - also UI/UX/Ideation - since I only know those, thats what I would be tested in to explain.
The interview would be an algorithm problem, judging how I think and what frameworks I am most familiar with, how I put them together to build a stack, and how comfortable I am in communicating it.
So not sure how to decipher what the above meant, and what/how I should prepare before this interview. Any advice/suggestion or what I should do? (What would be stack or framework in this case, Jquery, Chocolatechip.js?)
Thanks.
* Note its more of a Front-End Product Developer role - and the tech interview is to see that I won't get stump on dealing with technical problems. <comment><USER2> It's unclear from what you just said whether it would consist of just one algorithm problem, or whether it would consist of one algorithm problem and then other questions about frameworks.

Algorithms generally means data structures and algorithms. Stuff like hash tables, sorting, linked lists, binary search, trees, tree traversal methods, runtime complexity. Despite what it sounds like, this is considered _basic_ data structures and algorithms, material that can be covered in one CS class. It's material you could learn through self-study over the course of a month.

For front end developers frameworks/stack/communication probably means questions involving basic knowledge of jQuery and how the DOM works. Also might include questions about anything you list on your resume (e.g. if you list Backbone.js on your resume you might expect questions about Backbone's MVC system, events, etc.). Also might ask you non-coding 'architectural' questions where they ask you to describe in broad terms how you would construct something.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that definitely help with confirming.

It probably be more would one algorithm problem and then other questions about frameworks.

Yeah good chance a lot of questions on technical ideation and architecturing maybe a very open question, answered whichever tech language I prefer, or in plain english if it has to be cited in a language I am not familiar with.

\-- From there, how I do you think I can prepare?

<comment><USER2> Since they want to see how you communicate, you should also improve your technical communication skills. How, I don't know.

You should consider studying basic algorithms and data structures. I don't know what resource are out there. There are some MOOCs, and you could use HNSearch to see what people have recommended before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I am a SQA engineer working on CFD software but eventually want to make the jump to web development. When I am confident enough to start sending my resume out, I planned on buying Cracking the Coding Interview: 150 Programming Questions and Solutions ([http://www.amazon.com/dp/098478280X/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl...](http://www.amazon.com/dp/098478280X/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=3HU323C7NII2Z&coliid=I21BB463353CAB\)to) help me prepare for a technical interview.

</comment><comment><USER4> "Product developer" as in... what? That could be anything from CAD to supply chain to full-stack to front-end. What does the company do/what is your actual role/responsibilities?

<comment><AUTHOR> More Front-End. Thanks for clarification.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The coursera algorithms course are great introductions.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm also in a similar position, although I found that my experience of shipping SaaS and software largely on my own is completely ignored. Never mind the challenging software design decisions and the amount of unpaid work one must put in before it starts to make money (software is hard but that's because I'm an Economics major with no clue about engineering and only useless information about the stock market I'm supposed to be able to predict). Not to mention that I've actually worked as software developer at a company for 2 years because obviously what could a guy without a CS degree actually have done such as changing and influencing the company's product design and features?

None of it matters because I don't have a CS degree and apparently reciting algorithms and your ability to solve it in the shortest time possible is an absolute indicator of your ability to contribute to a tiny fraction of that company's product that is far less challenging than anything I've done by myself.

I've pretty much given up going to interviews and back to focusing what really matters, ship more software and get rich.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. I actually approach my learning in a very similar way. Thus I show value by my portfolio of apps ([http://garyyauchan.com/](http://garyyauchan.com/)) with ideation and designs, and codes I build through passionate googling.

Granted, the other view is that you need to know the "foundation" and the "why" in order to solve problems more efficiently.

<comment><USER6> extremely impressive portfolio I wish I had that level of output but I simply don't, as I have tendency to work on one hard problem for years.

Half the stuff they ask in interview is did you work this open source software and that, did you know this framework has X feature, can you tell me what it is...I'm like all of this I can google and tell you there's simply no difference, it's a matter when I googled it, but the other view is that they want someone with 5 years of angularjs and mongodb experience in the hopes of finding a multi-year veteran and expert in the myriad of brand new frameworks and technologies that are barely mature.</comment></comment></comment>


GitLab prohibits employees to carry out any personal work (14. Additional work) - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aWeNkw0J5O-BOBZXi8U0LUDEnjcvuWWiQXHVy-f_Pz0/edit <comment><USER2> We're working on improving this, see this issue [0].

[0]: [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab- com/issues/861](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/issues/861)

</comment><comment><USER3> IANAL but the non-compete clause is totally void in CA thank goodness. It's also a kinda shitty thing to make your employees sign. Glad I don't live in the Netherlands or other places with non-competes like Massachusetts.

I've seen the other clause before but it's usually phrased as "full time work required" or something like that.</comment>


Rise of the Meta Nerd - <AUTHOR> http://www.mattheakis.com/blog/view.php?name=the_rise_of_the_meta-nerd

<comment><USER2> Part of the problem is the competitive nature of the industry. Lots of job ads these days expect you to have some blog posts, or a side project. I am writing one in my limited spare time, not because I need to, but it seems like a step towards improving my career, having some code I can show people.</comment>


Advertising and Communities - Developing a Business Plan - <AUTHOR> http://www.sergiutruta.com/2007/05/17/advertising-and-communities-developing-a-business-plan/ <comment><AUTHOR> of course it is...but a service which sends 1.000 or more messages, can negotiate a good price for the sms. For example let's say 4 cents. If you charge the publishers 4 cents for each ad, you'll be able to pay for the messages. If you negotiate a better price or charge more for the ads, you'll make extra cash ;) Advertising on mobile phones is a really hot topic these days. But most of the implemented solutions are like this: you agree with the service to receive advertising messages, and you get something in return. This is not very efficient because the users can delete the messages without even opening them. I'll give more details in a dedicated article so stay tunned.

<comment><USER2> right, if advertising revenue greater than cost of SMS, then there's potential for profit. that part is easy to get.

but i still don't understand technically how such a transaction would work. how will you get a carrier to not charge me when i send SMS to someone? where is it that you step in the process? will i need to SMS you, and then it parses the number and message, and sends from you to my intended recipient?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> there are several services here (and I'm sure in other countries too) where you have a web page and can send messages for more or less money. look for "send sms" on Google and I'm sure you'll find some. The carrier may offer a web based service to which you can connect and send messages to. Sending sms from a web page is nothing new, not paying for it is :). Try to understand the idea of giving stuff for free to your users. The number of the users will increase exponentially (well, depending on the service you're giving) .

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> the carrier will charge for the sms. but the user won't pay for sending the sms. I/my service will pay for the sms. The money will come from those who'll want to insert ad messages.

<comment><USER2> meaning, you will need to contact and gain compliance with carriers. this could be a very substantial barrier. how do you plan to overcome this? \--hopefully you don't take this negatively, i'm curious what you come up with :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'll share with you the business plan for my startup.

</comment><comment><USER2> isn't SMS pricing controlled by carriers?

<comment><USER3> Yes, which is why we need to follow Japans example and switch to mobile email. Free + it enables scale-free networks.</comment></comment>


New font "Dyslexie" helps people with dyslexia read - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=new-font-helps-dyslexics-read

<comment><USER2> $69 for a download link for "Home" use? I would think if you'd designed something that would help dyslexics read (a genuine problem, a solution to which would benefit tens of thousands), you'd want it widely adopted, the better to help more people. If it's effective, individual dyslexic students could use it on laptops to make their own notes more readable, or set it as the default font in their browser to make general net use easier. A huge boon, but having a price this high will be a barrier.

Also, there's no info on the repertoire; does it have any characters outside the x20-xff range?

Any actual dyslexics tried it?

<comment><USER3> The creator is dyslexic and the site discusses a study done among dyslexic students at Uni Twente.

Given the other comments on the thread that indicate that there are already free clones available, I'd say that it's probably reasonable for him to ask for compensation for his work and investment in tools.

It's in line with commercial font licensing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I remember seeing this on reddit a long time ago. Then a couple days later a redditor created a cheaper alternative: <http://www.pixelscript.net/gilldyslexic/> Then, when I was tring to find the link, I found an open-source alternative: <http://opendyslexic.org/>

</comment><comment><USER5> It's great to see designers focusing on this issue. Interestingly, fonts that "assist" people with dyslexia have been around for quite a while. I wrote an article for Wired about the Read Regular font in 2003: <http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2003/10/60834>

You might also find this interesting: [http://www.iansyst.co.uk/about- us/resources/directory/articl...](http://www.iansyst.co.uk/about- us/resources/directory/article/articles/2012/10/18/fonts-for-dyslexia)

</comment><comment><USER6> If this works, why not go a step further and add decoration or accenting to the characters to better anchor them? Not unlike how on dice 6 and 9 are differentiated by an underline.

The slight deformity seems perhaps too subtle.

There are already alternate characters buried in the Unicode character space that could serve as simple substitutes, like ḏ or ḃ or ṗ.</comment>


HTML5 video and codecs - <AUTHOR> http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codecs/

<comment><USER2> _I want to make sure that when a child in India or Brazil or Kenya discovers the internet, there isn't a big piece of it (video) that they can't afford to participate in._

And yet... _Mozilla_ browsers are the ones that can't view most of the video out there. Are you really doing them such a favor by deciding for them (and your existing users) what formats are ok to view and which aren't? Or are you just shouting "think of the children!" because it's uncouth to criticize?

<comment><USER3> You're forgetting that people who use "downstream" versions of Mozilla (like the OLPC browser) are somehow _more important_ than people who use Firefox™. Some kind of Rawlsian logic is at work here.</comment></comment>


I Can Haz $$$: The Cheezburger Network Scores $30 Million in Funding - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2011/01/18/cheezburger-funding/ <comment><USER2> It's blatantly obvious the content is ripped off other sites and it's not "user submitted" like they claim. These corporation is hated on the forums where it hunts for memes. It's disgusting.

</comment><comment><USER3> I personally find this absolutely bewildering. I like cat pictures as much as the next guy... but $30 million? That makes them, what a $300 mil valuation? For funny pictures of cats?

No, really, what bubble.

</comment><comment><USER4> this is literally ridiculous. what's this websites asset, besides the domain name? there are thousands of other blogs with funny pictures. and anybody can set this up in 5min by themselves. we're gonna hit a wall soon and hard.

<comment><USER5> Can you also get ~300 million pages views/month and 11.6 million uniques/month in 5 minutes?

<http://www.quantcast.com/p-75z9nhQwNH4Ek#traffic>

<comment><USER6> I don't think that matters for his point: valuating business solely by the domain/number of views/visitors reeks eerily of the previous .com bubble.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Always welcome more lolcats! (Wish there were more lolcats on programming. :P)

</comment><comment><USER8> I imagine it must be difficult to talk about Ben Huh with someone who's hard of hearing.

Person 1: "Huh said we have to fix this."

Person 2: "Huh?"

Person 1: "That's right, Huh said that."</comment>


Why are tech companies making custom typefaces? - <AUTHOR> https://www.arun.is/blog/custom-typefaces/ <comment><USER2> This is one of those times where as a working creative that frequently reads Hacker News I straight up face palm.

I have to imagine a lot of these commenters would say the same in regards to any sort of subjective artistic choice that isn't purely optimized for efficiency.

I would like to leave you with a quote by Briano Eno from a really good lecture he gave several years ago that I hope can provide a jumping off point for alternate ways to think about style, and why I think y'all are asking the wrong questions.

"So the first question is, why is any of that important? Why do we do it? And notice it's not only us relatively wealthy people, in terms of global wealth, who are doing it - it's everybody that we know of. Every human group we know of is spending a lot of their time – in fact almost all of their surplus time and energy – is spent in the act of stylising things and enjoying other people's stylisations of things. So my question is, what is it for? In fact, my friend Danny Hillus, who's a scientist, was asked by a well-known science website, along with about 300 other scientists, he was asked what is the most interesting scientific question at the moment? A lot of the other people replied with things about the cosmological constant and Ryman's Hypothesis and all these very complicated things. And his question was very simple: he said why do we like music? And if you start thinking about that, that is really one of the most mysterious things you can imagine. Why do we even have an interest in music? Why do we have preferences? Why do we like this song better than that one? Why do we like this Beethoven sonata better than that Beethoven sonata? Why do we like this performance of that same sonata better than that other performance? We had very fine distinctions about things that we prefer, aesthetic things. And, yet, none of it seems to have much to do with functionalism, with staying alive and certainly not with industries I would say." \- Brian Eno

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/speeches/2015/bbc-music- jo...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/speeches/2015/bbc-music-john-peel- lecture)

<comment><USER3> Actually the content of the article makes this comment slightly unwarranted (unless I'm misreading the tone). The author has described, quite well, on how typography isn't about just subjective artistic choice but largely its functional implications. Oh and there is a reason why a lot of engineering folks have critical opinions about this. Some of us have worked with designers in the past that simply do not take the effort to explain _why_ a certain design choice was made (even though they put a painful amount of thought into the process). At my office, it took our engineering and design team a lot of time to finally figure out what was missing. Now our discussions have designers going into details of choices which makes it so clear that most of them aren't subjective at all (some are, and that is fine).

<comment><USER4> I think designers have the very challenging job of "threading the needle" between business considerations and aesthetics. Both can be critical depending on the mission.

Unfortunately, "subjective" is often used as a dirty word especially around here where some folks even claim to prefer html stripped of all styling. As you pointed out, there is a lot of thought and sweat that goes into the creation of a typeface. The artistic aspects deserve respect and attention not just from the practitioners but also from their users.

I think it's actually a good thing that there's a proliferation of typefaces. If a large company, wanting to avoid millions of dollars in fees to license a typeface, can pay a designer to create a new one that's a good thing. Even if the typeface is created for reasons of brand vanity, it puts someone to work and helps to further the development of typography in general.

<comment><USER5> > The artistic aspects deserve respect and attention not just from the > practitioners but also from their users.

As a developer and sysadmin: Let me know how that works for you. End users will rarely if ever recognize your contributions; will only really notice your contribution when it doesn't work.

Sorry.

<comment><USER6> I worked in graphic design before I made my way into programming full time. My first job was building desktop apps with a team of programmers with very little design sensibilities. As such, there was lots of plain grey, haphazard interfaces. While they functioned fine, they left nearly everything to be desired aesthetically.

I received immediate, positive feedback on my initial contributions. Applying basic design to otherwise "undesigned" interfaces, made a big difference to our users.

While that may be an extreme example, it does highlight the need for design. Whether or not someone can "respect" it, as the OP suggests, is debatable. But, the effectiveness of something designed well, isn't.

<comment><USER7> The biggest problem is that after this initial, high value work is done the designers are still on the payroll and they still need to demonstrate their value/be doing something. That's how you get un-necessary UI redesigns and, arguably, custom typefaces.

IMHO, designers just don't know when to stop.

<comment><USER8> I think the same could be said of developers. Or, maybe in both cases, it's the companies that don't know when to stop.

As a developer, and maybe more relevant here, a _user_ of software, it's kind of surprising how development efforts often continue well past the point of shipping something useful. Now, I'm not arguing that this applies to every software product, or that people should stop at the bare minimum like "welp, we shipped v1, let's pack it up everyone."

But this underlying belief that _things must be continually improved_ is very pervasive in software and even moreso in open source. ("Last commit was 6 months ago? This project is obviously dead!")

I don't know that anything can or should be done to "fix" this, but it's an interesting observation. Think about it next time there's an "upgrade" that breaks something or changes a workflow you liked. Why did that happen?

<comment><USER7> The difference is that developers can go on to build new features or even new products for the same company. Can they end up making things worse? Yes, but in such case I personally would blame short-sighted Product Managers chasing the new shiny.

Conversely, designers can not in isolation build a new product and thus are stuck (again, in my opinion) reinventing the wheel for what exists.

And yes, I agree with you that there is a lot of change for its own sake and I wish it would stop regardless of the source. See the recent UI overhaul of gmail. It was enough to force me to use their basic HTML UI and now I'm looking for an alternative all together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't think most tech companies actually want a completely custom, radically new typeface. They want a designer to trace Helvetica so they don't have to pay licensing fees.

<comment><USER10> The article contains an image [1] showing several tech-company-funded fonts side-by-side.

The fonts have some differences, but I'd have to agree with you the changes are so subtle it's hard to believe they resulted from an attempt to make a _radically_ new typeface.

[1] [https://www.arun.is/blog/custom- typefaces/unique_typefaces_m...](https://www.arun.is/blog/custom- typefaces/unique_typefaces_mobile.jpg)

<comment><USER11> I'm curious if there are any lawsuits based on basically tracing & duplicating fonts? Does adding the slightest accent to the letter "a" allow you to trace the other 99%.

Also many of these look like they just adjusted the weight ever so slightly. With variable fonts, I'm curious how this come into play when considering copyrights.

<comment><USER12> Per Ch 37, Sec. 202.1(e) of the Code of Federal Regulations, typefaces cannot be copyrighted in the United States:

[https://www.bitlaw.com/source/37cfr/202_1.html](https://www.bitlaw.com/source/37cfr/202_1.html)

Note that although the design of the typeface is not copyrightable, the computer programs which generate typefaces ('fonts') contain elements which are:

[https://www.copyright.gov/history/mls/ML-443.pdf](https://www.copyright.gov/history/mls/ML-443.pdf)

<comment> mark-r While they may not be copyrightable, you can get a design patent: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protection_of_typefaces#Design_patents). I've read that Adobe and Microsoft have both protected some fonts this way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _" The idea that typefaces (rather than fonts, which are computer software) cannot be copyrighted in the United States is black letter law. 37 C.F.R. § 202.1(e). Under U.S. law, typefaces and their letter forms or glyphs are considered utilitarian objects whose public utility outweighs any private interest in protecting their creative elements."_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protection_of_typefaces#United_States)

There is an interesting history of font copying going back to the beginning of the USA. Where the US printers wanted to use European fonts (typefaces?), but didn't want to be hampered by their copyright laws. So there was no copyright protections of fonts in the US.

IANAL but Adobe lost some court case on this recently where they tried to accuse someone of "stealing/copying" a font. But since you can't copyright the alphabet, you can only copyright the font's actual data.

In theory you could trace any font you want in a font design program, and it is now legally yours.

Which makes sense if you are a business that uses fonts (ie a software company) as a primary part of your product instead of a permanent fee to a font provider.

</comment><comment><USER14> > Why are tech companies making custom typefaces?

Because they hate me. I disable font smoothing on my machines. Custom typefaces usually have poor hinting, which means they look _terrible_ without smoothing (e.g. inconstant line thickness and inconsistent spacing).

The fonts that ship with Windows and Mac OS are wonderfully hinted, and appear crisp and clean without font smoothing. I curse the day web fonts were invented and gave the industry bad excuses not to use them.

Google is the _absolute worst_ here. They use custom fonts heavily now, and somehow they're not even blockable with the Font Blocker extension ([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/font- blocker/knpga...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/font- blocker/knpgaobajhnhgkhhoopjepghknapnikl)).

<comment><USER15> Do you still use a 1024 x 768 monitor or what?

<comment><USER14> > Do you still use a 1024 x 768 monitor or what?

No, I have some nice, large 16:10 monitors.

However, that brings up a good point: if you're designing your stuff to only look good on a MacBook's retina display, you're doing it wrong.

<comment><USER16> You need to cater for both nowadays, I think.

I recently upgraded from a 26" 16:10 1920×1200 display to a similarly-sized 16:9 4K display. I ran them side-by-side for a few days to compare. The difference in text quality was night and day. After using the 4K for a week the quality of the old display looked terrible: blurry and unreadable. Like going back to 800×600! I sold it; I saw no value in it as a secondary display. If I do ever need a second, it will be another 4K. Or 8K when it's available and affordable. If you're developing, writing or reading all day long, the improved legibility makes such a difference for ease of reading, eyestrain and headaches that it makes little sense to retain the old.

We clearly need to support low DPI displays for some time to come; the installed base is huge. However, high DPI displays are the future, and it's going to be increasingly a requirement that they are also properly catered for.

I'm not a particularly big fan of the trend by Microsoft (for example) to use very thin fonts with Windows 10. Just because you can to show off the technology, doesn't mean you should. I'd prefer bolder, more easily legible text even with a hi-DPI display, even if the thin ones are fashionable for some reason.

<comment> mark-r I only wish 4K was offered in 16:10, or just that 16:10 was more popular in general. I'll be hanging on to my 1920x1200 until it dies.

<comment><USER16> Yes, it is annoying. However, it's not as bad as I thought it might be. Since the display is quite big in size, I generally use one window on each half of the display and I don't feel I'm really missing out on vertical space too much. The DPI is sufficiently high that I don't find the horizontal size too small either, which was certainly the case with half of a 1920×1200 display previously.

On the other hand, it's sufficiently big that I don't generally need such a large space. I could have gone with a physically smaller 4K display with a higher DPI and still been very happy.

<comment><USER17> My main problem with 16:9 is how obscenely long they are. I use my monitors to do work, not watch movies, so I have a lot more need for vertical real-estate.

Tilting them on their side doesn't help, because they're far too narrow that way.

<comment><USER15> Boy do I want to know what you feel about them ultrawide monitors

<comment><USER17> They are harbingers of the computing apocalypse and have shown that progress is a lie. By 2050 we'll be forced to use monitors with the aspect ratio of swords, because the manufactures are going to need to find another ratio to senselessly maximize after they've achieved peak thinness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> You can tell how old a car is by the extra words on the back under the name. "Fuel injected"? 1980's or 1990's. "Hybrid"? 2000's or 2010's.

Similarly, you can tell the era of computer software by what strange thing they decide they need to customize. We're in the era of "slight variants of Helvetica". (Nobody's asking for a Zapfino clone, strangely.) For whatever reason, fonts and logotypes are the axis on which everybody seems to need to compete today. And gratuitous 2D animation.

We already went through the "custom sound" phase, and it (mostly) went out of style, thankfully. Splash screens are also on the way out, since we no longer need a way to hide long loading times.

I wonder what's next. Gratuitous 3D animation? Custom smells? Plaids?

To be clear, I have no problem with nice fonts on my computer, but I think it's funny that everyone is so focused on showing off their creativity on this one very specific axis. You really can't think of any other possible ways to have functional style?

<comment><USER19> Personally I think the problem is the over-use of analytics in page design. No one can compete on page design anymore because it doesn't convert well with focus groups or in A/B testing, so every page looks like a Bootstrap template. So they try to find SOMETHING that won't put up lower conversion numbers yet is slightly different so they can say their page is unique.

<comment><USER18> Good point. It's probably a design focus of companies _because_ it's named, and self-contained. You can put "Font" on a schedule, and a budget, and an A/B test. Your programmers can't really complain that it makes any other task more complex. It's the holy grail of design: some pixie dust you can sprinkle on at the end, which impacts nothing but makes everything prettier.

If, say, physics-engine-based layouts became popular for general user interfaces, it would take over the entire development of the product. It would affect every part of the budget and schedule and architecture. You couldn't feasibly A/B test it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's not just tech companies. The BBC has commissioned a typeface[1] for their massively varied output, to cut down on licensing costs.

[1] [https://www.bbc.co.uk/gel/articles/introducing-bbc- reith](https://www.bbc.co.uk/gel/articles/introducing-bbc-reith)

<comment><USER21> Aren't the fonts Google provides free of charge? At least for web-design?

<comment><USER20> They use it in multiple languages (World Service), mediums (TV, online, print), and use-cases (serious for news, legible for preschoolers learning to read, edgy for comedy trailers, etc.), for which the web fonts may be too limited or restrictive in number and variation of styles or characters.

It's also an opportunity to brand something as uniquely theirs, unlike a Google web font that anybody can use.

<comment><USER22> Just to note, that print here refers mostly to advertising and corporate brochures.

We do have magazines and merchandise for some franchises, but as far as I know, those were secondary when it came to BBC Reith/Reith Sans. TV & Online are big, and especially when it comes to legibility across resolutions and encoding systems (PAL/NTSC/SD/Pixel Ratios/HD/4K/Mobile/High-DPI..)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I work as a developer at a growing startup, who creates a widget which is inserted into a vendor webpage, much like Intercom's chat bubble.

We spent a lot of time ensuring our build came in as small as possible, in order to reduce server costs and page load times, for millions of potential users.

Suddenly, the creative side of the business wanted to add our own font to the application. The bespoke font files (woff2&1, thanks lord) we were given were almost 5x the size of the initial build package.

All the worth of optimisation, right?

<comment><USER24> not to mention that its hard to stop custom fonts 'popping in'

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> >I can't help but feel that some of these companies wanted a

>custom typeface simply because that's what everyone else is

>doing. This cargo cult mentality that is so prevalent in

>design is at best wasteful and at worst illegal.

Illegal?!? I'm going to need to see some work on this part. I couldn't find anything in the article that seemed to directly support the assertion.

on edit: formatting

<comment><USER26> Yeah, the author needs to either remove that or clarify that point. That being said, I _think_ the author means that all of these new type faces are very similar and so they may be infringing. Or that the companies want a familiar type face but don't want to pay for it, so they commission a look-a-like. But, that's just a very large grasp on my part from reading the article.

<comment><USER13> He may be bringing up the issue that it's perfectly legal to copy another font visually as long as you don't copy the font's data. (maybe something the author doesn't understand?)

<comment><USER27> How is that true? Can I copy a book or a painting visually as long as I don't copy its "data"?

<comment><USER28> No, but typefaces are specifically excluded from copyright. An alphabet is considered to be utilitarian, not art.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Font licensing is rent-seeking bullshit on the level of "Mickey Mouse" copyright extensions and I'm surprised the big foundries have managed to convince everyone that they need to pay for typefaces, which are explicitly copyright-free in every major jurisdiction.

<comment><USER30> Just out of curiosity, how would you suggest that foundries make money?

<comment><USER31> I believe GP is implying that they don't deserve to make money from a copyright-free asset.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> _Another reason is support for multiple languages. Many companies in western countries may start by using a typeface that only covers Latin script._

I was doing some work with Nokia around the time they released Nokia Pure, and I can certainly say that multiple language support was, at least for us, one of the primary drivers for using it, and it made our lives a lot easier at the time.

<comment><USER33> It would be interesting to see a resource that paired up equivalent fonts in different scripts. It could take into account form ("This Arabic font uses similar shapes to Helvetica"), function ("This is the Chinese 'default' front similar to Times New Roman"), and what the font implies ("This font is used as a 'futuristic' font in Japanese similar to Eurostyle or Bank Gothic in Latin script").

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I've been to a talk about the new Lufthansa CI in Frankfurt a few weeks ago and asked this very question — why move away from Helvetica? The answer was, first, Helvetica's readability on screen is apparently not very good, and second, Lufthansa had to pay massive licensing fees in order to use Helvetica.

</comment><comment><USER35> Typography is awesome and I like how this article conveys the functional aspect of it. Does anyone know of any good readings about typefaces (specifically about ratios that letters should adhere to?)

<comment><USER36> Try "Stop Stealing Sheep" [1] or "The Elements of Typographic Style" [2]

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0201703394](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0201703394)

[2] [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0881792128](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0881792128)

<comment><USER37> I will say that "The Elements of Typographic Style" is still the standard and probably one of the most 'Textbook' typography books, it's still primarily concerned with book typography. It does go into computers and how they have affected typography, but still largely in terms of book layout engines and such. Bringhurst doesn't even get into other forms of print typography like posters, let alone apps and websites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The article suggests that tech companies believe brand is important, and therefore invest in building custom typefaces to save on licensing fees.

That doesn't really hold up. The cost of developing a custom typeface can easily run from hundreds of thousands into millions of dollars.

It can take a huge amount of time and energy from within the company to commission and direct a large creative project.

Typeface licensing costs are a very small proportion of what most companies will spend on brand marketing.

And saving money on a small line-item isn't exactly a recipe for getting promoted.

Announcing that your shiny new typeface will save the company lots of money is, more likely, a post-purchase rationalisation that helps make everyone feel good about the investment.

If the driver was primarily to reduce licensing costs, there are some great alternatives:

1\. Use one of the many terrific free and open source typefaces that will cover all the languages and use cases you really need (like Noto or Open Sans). Or even better, system fonts.

Jeremiah Shoaf has a terrific curated list here: [https://www.typewolf.com/google-fonts](https://www.typewolf.com/google-fonts)

2\. Threaten to use a free alternative and then negotiate a better deal on licensing

3\. Go ahead and use your favourite typeface without declaring the full usage so it is unlicensed or under-licensed. This saves a lot of money and is actually pretty common.

In the past I've interviewed designers and creative teams about how they choose and decide to license typefaces. They talk about things like:

* wanting to create exactly the right aesthetic for their brand (i.e. I can only be satisfied by something that doesn't yet exist)

* finding usage-based licensing complex as it creates non-financial costs in terms of understanding, tracking and justifying the licensing costs. That all gets much easier if you own the typeface.

* reducing the risk of inadvertent copyright infringement and subsequent reputational damage

* feeling in control by owning the IP (and therefore not dependent on any third party in future)

<comment><USER39> > That doesn't really hold up. The cost of developing a custom typeface can > easily run from hundreds of thousands into millions of dollars.

No-one's arguing the up front investment in creating the font, but instead focusing on the "rent-seeking behaviour" that sees the _recurring_ costs come in anywhere up to $1M a year. Some foundries charge you per pageview and per mobile app developer. There is a company/audience size at which keeping track of pageviews and seat count and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars or perhaps millions per year is significantly more trouble than the initial hurt of commissioning a typeface. At the end of the exercise you can wrap it up as a marketing or branding opportunity and generate a few hundred thousand pageviews and call it a day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> The article didn't mention Arial from Microsoft all the way back in 1982! And it's probably one of the most used "Helvetica"-like (to avoid licensing) fonts ever.

<comment> mark-r The article was about recent trends, not ancient history.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> There's nothing like putting Circular side-by-side with a handful of its imitators to demonstrate how much tighter, sharper, and better-balanced Circular is than any of them.

</comment><comment><USER42> All I can say is that Noto has been one of the most wonderful gifts Google has given the world.

An ultra-high-quality, visually attractive font family that includes a wide array of weights and even a decent selection of widths _on top of_ what is quite possibly the best Unicode support in the world.

I'm at the point where I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth and just be thankful I have Noto for my typesetting projects.

</comment><comment><USER43> And then these fonts can't display anything outside of the ASCII range (or, rarely, outside the Latin-1 range).

</comment><comment><USER44> > Developing a custom typeface can eliminate the recurring licensing fees that > must be paid to foundries. IBM [4] and Netflix [5] claim to save millions of > dollars per year by switching from Helvetica to IBM Plex and Gotham to > Netflix Sans, respectively.

I wasn't aware that these common fonts charged royalties...

<comment><USER45> The prices are swallowed by operating system vendors, usually. Same with codec licences and so on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Not only companies, Sweden has this for example: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Sans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Sans)

<comment><USER47> Estonia also created its own font for branding purposes recently called Aino: [https://brand.estonia.ee/design/typography/](https://brand.estonia.ee/design/typography/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> The primary reason is that with sans serif fonts there are fewer pixels to send. This isn't really a big deal until you get to the size of Google or Facebook and it really starts to add up.

<comment><USER42> I just wish they'd at least use a humanist sans.

I was really sad when Google switched Android's default font from Droid Sans, a humanist sans (and the direct predecessor of Noto Sans), to Roboto, a neo- grotesk.

Or when Apple went from Myriad to Helevetica Neue and San Francisco.

I just really hate everything about the way neo-grotesk fonts look, and mobile UIs have looked awful to me ever since.

<comment><USER48> I think for Apple is was more about it being organic and locally sourced.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Are there not open source fonts? Seems like this ecosystem would be very large, since so many designers want to enhance their portfolio. Basically any font should be a commodity.

What am I missing?

<comment> mark-r You're missing two things. First, the history of typography - fonts were not always free to copy and use when there were physical parts involved. Second, fonts are something that take a lot of work to put together, especially when done well. Most people can't devote that kind of effort for free.

That said, open source fonts are definitely on the rise. Many people don't have a problem using a font that isn't quite as refined as the classics, and some enlightened companies are bankrolling development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I don't generally mind a company having a standard typography as part of its public image. But it irks me that Qualcomm's website delivers webfonts to ensure that every "Q" that appears anywhere on their site is rendered as their logo, even in body text where their logo is a significant distraction and harm to readability.

</comment><comment><USER51> I'd like to highlight Google Noto Fonts, which seem to have been made with an entirely different purpose - i.e. not brand recognition:

[https://www.google.com/get/noto/](https://www.google.com/get/noto/)

<comment><USER42> I work on anime fansubs as a hobby, mostly as a typesetter, I use Noto Serif as my main dialogue font, and I default to Noto Sans (in various weights and widths) when I need a regular sans to set on-screen text and signs.

It is absolutely _perfect_. And you know what? I don't think I've gotten a single complaint from anyone about using a serif font for dialogue, which is something that's really uncommon in the fansubbing community (there is a tendency to stick to old taboos, even though the reasons why serif fonts were avoided are no longer valid now that almost everyone, including me, only releases softsubs). It's just that gorgeous.

The widths and weights Noto is available in is also massively useful to me. There have been times I've tried to set some text, observed that the regular is too light and the bold is too heavy... and then I remember that Noto has a demi. Or when it started to irk me that the width of the font didn't harmonize well with the width of the Japanese text and I started to play with \fscx until I realized that I could just use Noto Sans SemiCondensed and get something that's optically sound.

And the best part is that it's all open-source.

<comment><USER52> I probably have seen your work, so thank you. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I'm curious why Ubuntu as a font was included on this list. While it technically is a font, it's a font shipped with an OS. There is no mention in the article about problems with default fonts shipped with windows or macOS.

<comment><USER54> They use it for branding too: [https://www.ubuntu.com](https://www.ubuntu.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I don't understand how typeface licensing works. I normally just pay once and be done with it (essentially buying it) but this thread makes it sound like you need to pay by usage or something?

<comment><USER37> It depends on the use case and who you are licensing it from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I was previously the CEO of a type design & distribution company, if anybody has questions about the commercial side of things.

</comment><comment><USER57> I have a (fair warning) rant here that is likely going to ding my HN karma, but here-goes.

I work closely with design and I am consistently saddened by the state of the tech industry when design discussions pop up on HN. They almost always devolve into a cesspool of blanket criticism and rejection. "Those designers..." an HN commenter will inevitably say, "...all they care about is making things look pretty." Well, sure. Yes.

The facts are plain, and actually boring. Customers like pretty products. Well-designed experiences and objects, compared to purely utilitarian products of similar functional capabilities, will always sell better. They create more passionate users and make more money. This is understood by businesses across the world, almost forever. To read an HN thread on design with no previous convictions is to see a world where designers are scam artists and their contributions to the tech industry nothing but snake oil.

Of course there is excess. That's also obvious. Tarsnap and Pinboard are HN darlings and they clearly place all their emphasis on functional design rather than visual design, and are very successful businesses. Craigslist as well is one of these types of businesses. But these companies do not appeal to average consumers. Pinboard doesn't compete with Pinterest for users – nor could it ever, nor does it wish to. Would I, as a proponent for modern design sensibilities, argue that Craigslist doesn't have good design? No! They have fantastic design... for them. It suits their brand. Would Netflix be functional if it had a "Web 1.0" Craigslist-style interface? Yes! But people would hate it. It wouldn't suit Netflix. It would look terrible in a living room on a TV, for one, but Netflix is a platform for cinematic experiences and the branding and interface should allow designers the kind of control that let's them create a suitably cinematic interface – however they wish to do that. Craigslist works, by comparison, because it is essentially a glorified newsletter (hot take!).

The price of a custom typeface, depending on who you commission to make it, can probably range between $100,000 and $500,000 or something like that. For a mature business like Airbnb or Netflix or Google this is not an investment in efficiency or in growth. This probably makes the HN reader's head explode. It is an exercise in fashion and style and distinction. There is a reason that the console-dwelling set is often stereotyped as the guy in poorly-fitting jeans and neon sneakers and a hoodie with a shark high-fiving a sasquatch on the front... they often don't waste time on considering things like fashion or style or distinction.

One mentor told me that "Design is anything that makes people more successful". Sometimes this is making one button red and one button green, for example. Sometimes it is about aligning critical actions to the edges of the experience, a la Fitts' Law. But I think this is a narrow understanding of what design can be. Design is also about creating a visual atmosphere, a well- defined world for the narrative of a product to become more than it's functions.

Software is allowed to have an emotional quality to it, it is good to delight users with little illustrations and round buttons. An interface _should_ have feeling, and mood, and a vibe to it. Personality and soul is always, at some level, designed – visually and functionally in equally significant parts.

<comment><USER58> > There is a reason that the console-dwelling set is often stereotyped as the > guy in poorly-fitting jeans and neon sneakers and a hoodie with a shark > high-fiving a sasquatch on the front... they often don't waste time on > considering things like fashion or style or distinction.

So you go on a rant about 'us' stereotyping designers..by stereotyping us?

Bold.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> It's design.... why get all design happy about anything? Because humans like aesthetics.

</comment><comment><USER60> Because it's cool as hell.

</comment><comment><USER61> Interesting to see Source Code/Sans/Serif Pro left out of the discussion.

<comment><USER62> Adobe is a foundry, so it's not surprising that they design fonts. The more surprising part of the Source Pro family is the license afaik.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Why did courtiers at Versailles spend their hordes of gold on the latest finery?

</comment><comment><USER64> Because they have the resources to do it abd they want that level of control?

</comment><comment><USER65> For the same reason some people want tailor made suits.

</comment><comment><USER66> I wouldn't know. I disable all custom typefaces.

</comment><comment><USER67> The answer is cost. Then they get a guy wearing all black and tortoiseshell glasses to tart it up in some language about identity and authenticity.

</comment><comment><USER68> That's why I simply lock all fonts in my browser to a very limited set with a min and Max size.

</comment><comment><USER69> following the thread to learn the names of the popular fonts :)

</comment><comment><USER70> Because they hire lots of designers and they have to keep them busy so they don't leave.

</comment><comment><USER71> Fascinating! I guess I'm gonna continue blocking all custom web fonts like I've been doing for the past 5 years :)

<comment><USER72> How do you do this?

<comment><USER71> [https://collinmbarrett.com/block-web- fonts/](https://collinmbarrett.com/block-web-fonts/)

<comment><USER72> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Designers are on the payroll, and feel like they have to be doing something...

</comment><comment><USER74> I've never understood the fuzz about typography. Yes, it's important that fonts that are used a lot meet certain standards - but some people seem to make a big deal out of it.

<comment><USER75> Some people spend a lot of time color coordinating their clothes, some just wear whatever. Some people try to make everything they write look beautiful while making it easier to read, some people just type the letters and don't care.

Good typography can make a massive difference to the presentation of text. To some people that makes it worth the effort

<comment><USER76> Based on the state of the web in 2018, with it's pop-ups in the middle of the page, cookie warning, laggy scrolling, and image pop-in that moves what you're reading, I find it very difficult to believe that that many people actually care much about the presentation of text.

<comment><USER77> The fact that marketers get to make their contributions to a website doesn't negate that there's a designer involved who probably cares about typography, color, space, etc.

<comment><USER76> What I mean is that the company clearly doesn't care all that much about presenting text, so it is difficult to believe that making text more presentable is one of their motivations.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


"I got screwed by Square" a lesson in why customer service still matters - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/square-credit-card-fraud/ <comment><AUTHOR> There is a followup from the OP that is even more interesting: [http://alexshvartsman.com/2014/02/13/fair-and- square/](http://alexshvartsman.com/2014/02/13/fair-and-square/)</comment>


What happened with the Facebook Timelines? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I believe they are still in battle with a company that creates similar "timelines" and has ownership over it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I got an early sign-up to the timeline layout and I still my profile working with timeline...but only other early adopters get to see my profile with the new layout, everybody else (about 99% of my facebook friends) still see my page with the classic layout... at least it looks cool to me.

</comment><comment><USER4> Maybe they were scared of Google+ at the time and made the announcement a bit too early to keep Facebook in headlines. Or they just backed off when there wasn't positive response to it.

</comment><comment><USER5> No idea... I never got the update.</comment>


Will Silicon Alley Be the Next Silicon Valley? - <AUTHOR> http://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2015/07/will-silicon-alley-be-the-next-silicon-valley.html

<comment><USER2> Nice try. With a headline like that, you certainly can keep trying to write it into existence.</comment>


Chromebook Pixel is Microsoft's worst nightmare come true – and Apple's, too - <AUTHOR> http://betanews.com/2013/02/21/chromebook-pixel-is-microsofts-worst-nightmare-come-true-and-apples-too/

<comment><USER2> That six degrees of desperation bullshit was cringe inducing.

Edit: I meant separation, but desperation is funnier.

<comment><USER3> If I ask any four people in my social circles if they have Chromebook, four of them will answer "What's a Chromebook?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Chromebook Pixel is Microsoft's worst nightmare come true -- and Apple's, too_

Maybe one day. But certainly not on $1300-$1500 browsers. I got a WIN 7 Laptop for around $600 last year, 8GB of RAM, 1TB of hard-drive and use Photoshop, my decade old Windows programs and everything else I can think of with it.

Now with Chrome one can browse the web--at just $900 more.

<comment><USER5> Conveniently ignoring the hardware advantages is convenient.

I like SSDs

I like high PPI displays.

I like glass touchpads.

I like a metal body.

I like free cloud storage.

<comment><USER6> Conveniently ignoring that it's sold at the same price as the MacBook Pro retina 13'' is convenient.

<comment><USER7> The touchscreen is everything. I would willingly pay double, triple for a touchscreen macbook pro.

<comment><USER6> really? for the price i assume it's a computer for working. I can hardware imagine a single situation when i'm programming code / writing with a word processor / making music / creting graphics and I'd feel the need to dirty the vertical screen that's in front of me with a movement of the arm that gets me away from the keyboard and the mouse.

Oh, let alone that I can hardly use a computer running Linux to work professionally in the graphics / music / media fields, but to each his own: maybe you like the idea of a 1300$ machine to surf the web and play angry bird, and it's not overpriced since it's not from Apple.

<comment><USER7> Well, it would be very useful making music and graphics, just off of the frustration I've felt with both of those ventures and a lack of touchscreen. But no, I just feel hate the disconnect between gestures and the screen: I always fumble them, to the point where the only "gesture" I have is scrolling.

I should also point out that I only have one computer, not one for dev and one for play, so I really want a touchscreen and a keyboard.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>