Having spent some time with Google as SWE, I think Google was by far the best engineering company I have worked with. Even Amazon, Microsoft were terrible when it comes to software engineering.
I am one of those engineers who do not care about culture as long as I am getting paid for the efforts I put in. Google in that sense beat others by HUGE margin.
The engineering work was however very different. We focused on right engineering solutions instead of just business aspect. While that kind of attitude hurts us in short term, it pays big in long term.
BS. Most cars drive on freeways and interstates most of the time, especially the large trucks etc. traffic in residential areas is generally pretty low and it more only during mornings and evenings.
P2P is a loss making feature for nearly everyone involved. If you have some other way to obtaining users and maintaining growth, you are better off not supporting P2P payments.
P2P payments are also extremely tiny portion of revenue.
Simple policies are easy to understand, easy to comply with and have more predictable externalities and second order effects.
The PG&E poppycock is hard to understand. Even I do not fully understand their BS like net metering.
Just make solar panels cheaper so that a lot of people see benefit in buying them to meet their energy needs and lower the energy costs in a way it benefits PG&E too.
If I understand correctly, installing a better + solar panels might solve a lot of these problems for some homes.
California's politicians are corrupt and incompetent. PG&E is a great example of this. PUC of California is supposed to protect consumers but consumers right now are paying record high energy prices in California for a third rate service.
No one is forced to use G or M but they make better products. It is not monopoly. There are excellent alternatives available very easily.
Comcast, ATT are different. You simply dont have much of a choice even in cities meant for internet. San Jose has like 1Gbps ATT and 100Mbps Comcast as the only options.
This is not a forum of geopolitics experts but I think this wars is the biggest threat we currently have for tech progress. If Russia takes over Ukraine next step would be proxy wars in Europe, breaking down EU/NATO coupled with US domestic politics turning nativist which will burn our future. This war must end one way or another sooner.
Other than garbage airlines like Frontier, I have never had reasons to complain about any American airlines that much. Competition is so fierce that they all are pretty bad in my opinion.
Pixel smartphones: Launched in 2016
Google Home smart speaker: Launched in 2016
Google Wifi mesh Wi-Fi system: Launched in 2016
Google Nest smart display: Launched in 2018
Google Nest Wifi mesh Wi-Fi system: Launched in 2019
Stadia Cloud gaming platform*: Launched in 2019
Google Pay (formerly known as Tez): 2028
> Google’s problem has always been in product follow through.
Google is large enough to not care about small opportunities. It ends up focusing on bigger opportunities that only it can execute well. Google's ability to shut down products that dont work is an insult to user but a very good corporate strategy and they deserve kudos for that.
Now, coming back to the "follow through". Google Search, Gmail, Chrome, Android, Photos, Drive, Cloud etc. all are excellent examples of Google's long term commitment to the product and constantly making things better and keeping them relevant for the market. Many companies like Yahoo! had a head start but could not keep up with their mail service.
Sure it has shut down many small products but that is because they were unlikely to turn into bigger opportunities. They often integrated the best aspect of those products into their other well established products such as Google Trips became part of search and Google Shopping became part of search.
I think we should all take a pause and just appreciate the amazing work Google, OpenAI, MS and many others including those in academia have done. We do not know if Google or OpenAI or someone else is going to win the race but unlike many other races, this one makes the entire humanity move faster. Keep the negativity aside and appreciate the sweat and nights people have poured into making such things happen. Majority of these people are pretty ordinary folks working for a salary so they can spend their time with their families.
May be in the HN bubble "South Asia" is an expected term, very likely because HN crowd might be subjected to far left academia. But it is offensive and racist for actual Indians.
I am one of those engineers who do not care about culture as long as I am getting paid for the efforts I put in. Google in that sense beat others by HUGE margin.
The engineering work was however very different. We focused on right engineering solutions instead of just business aspect. While that kind of attitude hurts us in short term, it pays big in long term.