<story><title>Eric Schmidt&apos;s book is wrong about how Google works</title><url>http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/30/why-eric-schmidt-doesnt-know-how-google-works/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>gilgoomesh</author><text>If we take this article at face-value (that Google is as big as it is because of its monopoly in search) a related question is immediately raised: why is Google&amp;#x27;s search engine a monopoly?&lt;p&gt;If the monopoly is due to superior technology, why are Google able to write a better search engine and maintain this search engine lead?&lt;p&gt;If the monopoly is due to other effects (buying favored search-engine status in Safari, Firefox and pushing Chrome&amp;#x2F;Android) why don&amp;#x27;t the browsers have all the power?&lt;p&gt;I guess I agree with the article that Google&amp;#x27;s power is search-engine derived but there&amp;#x27;s more to the source of that monopoly than I think the article discusses.</text></comment>
<story><title>Eric Schmidt&apos;s book is wrong about how Google works</title><url>http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/30/why-eric-schmidt-doesnt-know-how-google-works/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>fivedogit</author><text>&amp;gt; the authors are confusing causation and correlation... they are all consequences of Google’s success. For example the authors write: “Their plan for creating that great search engine... Hire as many talented software engineers as possible, and give them freedom.” Well, this worked because the search was already successful enough to fund that freedom.&lt;p&gt;This is the key point and the clickbait-y headline notwithstanding, it&amp;#x27;s a very valid point. People look at Google and say &amp;quot;wow they have super-smart engineers and let them work on whatever they want with 20% of their time&amp;quot; and tons and tons of products sprung up all over the place.&lt;p&gt;But after a while, management seemed to back off of that philosophy quite a bit. In 2011, Google killed off many of its less successful projects, including Google Labs, and I read in some nook or cranny of the Internet that the 20% time has been quietly deemphasized over a number of years.&lt;p&gt;So the idea that you can just hire smart people and magic will happen, though often copied and lionized, is not all it&amp;#x27;s cracked up to be. &amp;lt;Insert quip about monkeys, typewriters and Shakespeare here.&amp;gt;</text></comment>