More on Technology
Al Anany
2 years ago
Notion AI Might Destroy Grammarly and Jasper
The trick Notion could use is simply Facebook-ing the hell out of them.
*Time travel to fifteen years ago.* Future-Me: “Hey! What are you up to?” Old-Me: “I am proofreading an article. It’s taking a few hours, but I will be done soon.” Future-Me: “You know, in the future, you will be using a google chrome plugin called Grammarly that will help you easily proofread articles in half that time.” Old-Me: “What is… Google Chrome?” Future-Me: “Gosh…”
I love Grammarly. It’s one of those products that I personally feel the effects of. I mean, Space X is a great company. But I am not a rocket writing this article in space (or am I?)…
No, I’m not. So I don’t personally feel a connection to Space X. So, if a company collapse occurs in the morning, I might write about it. But I will have zero emotions regarding it.
Yet, if Grammarly fails tomorrow, I will feel 1% emotionally distressed. So looking at the title of this article, you’d realize that I am betting against them. This is how much I believe in the critical business model that’s taking over the world, the one of Notion.
Notion How frequently do you go through your notes?
Grammarly is everywhere, which helps its success. Grammarly is available when you update LinkedIn on Chrome. Grammarly prevents errors in Google Docs.
My internal concentration isn't apparent in the previous paragraph. Not Grammarly. I should have used Chrome to make a Google doc and LinkedIn update. Without this base, Grammarly will be useless.
So, welcome to this business essay.
Grammarly provides a solution.
Another issue is resolved by Jasper.
Your entire existence is supposed to be contained within Notion.
New Google Chrome is offline. It's an all-purpose notepad (in the near future.)
How should I start my blog? Enter it in Note.
an update on LinkedIn? If you mention it, it might be automatically uploaded there (with little help from another app.)
An advanced thesis? You can brainstorm it with your coworkers.
This ad sounds great! I won't cry if Notion dies tomorrow.
I'll reread the following passages to illustrate why I think Notion could kill Grammarly and Jasper.
Notion is a fantastic app that incubates your work.
Smartly, they began with note-taking.
Hopefully, your work will be on Notion. Grammarly and Jasper are still must-haves.
Grammarly will proofread your typing while Jasper helps with copywriting and AI picture development.
They're the best, therefore you'll need them. Correct? Nah.
Notion might bombard them with Facebook posts.
Notion: “Hi Grammarly, do you want to sell your product to us?” Grammarly: “Dude, we are more valuable than you are. We’ve even raised $400m, while you raised $342m. Our last valuation round put us at $13 billion, while yours put you at $10 billion. Go to hell.” Notion: “Okay, we’ll speak again in five years.”
Notion: “Jasper, wanna sell?” Jasper: “Nah, we’re deep into AI and the field. You can’t compete with our people.” Notion: “How about you either sell or you turn into a Snapchat case?” Jasper: “…”
Notion is your home. Grammarly is your neighbor. Your track is Jasper.
What if you grew enough vegetables in your backyard to avoid the supermarket? No more visits.
What if your home had a beautiful treadmill? You won't rush outside as much (I disagree with my own metaphor). (You get it.)
It's Facebooking. Instagram Stories reduced your Snapchat usage. Notion will reduce your need to use Grammarly.
The Final Piece of the AI Puzzle
Let's talk about Notion first, since you've probably read about it everywhere.
They raised $343 million, as I previously reported, and bought four businesses
According to Forbes, Notion will have more than 20 million users by 2022. The number of users is up from 4 million in 2020.
If raising $1.8 billion was impressive, FTX wouldn't have fallen.
This article compares the basic product to two others. Notion is a day-long app.
Notion has released Notion AI to support writers. It's early, so it's not as good as Jasper. Then-Jasper isn't now-Jasper. In five years, Notion AI will be different.
With hard work, they may construct a Jasper-like writing assistant. They have resources and users.
At this point, it's all speculation. Jasper's copywriting is top-notch. Grammarly's proofreading is top-notch. Businesses are constrained by user activities.
If Notion's future business movements are strategic, they might become a blue ocean shark (or get acquired by an unbelievable amount.)
I love business mental teasers, so tell me:
How do you feel? Are you a frequent Notion user?
Do you dispute my position? I enjoy hearing opposing viewpoints.
Ironically, I proofread this with Grammarly.
Monroe Mayfield
2 years ago
CES 2023: A Third Look At Upcoming Trends
Las Vegas hosted CES 2023. This third and last look at CES 2023 previews upcoming consumer electronics trends that will be crucial for market share.
Definitely start with ICT. Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon spoke to CNBC from Las Vegas on China's crackdown and the company's automated driving systems for electric vehicles (EV). The business showed a concept car and its latest Snapdragon processor designs, which offer expanded digital interactions through SalesForce-partnered CRM platforms.
Electrification is reviving Michigan's automobile industry. Michigan Local News reports that $14 billion in EV and battery manufacturing investments will benefit the state. The report also revealed that the Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve (SOAR) fund had generated roughly $1 billion for the state's automotive sector.
Ars Technica is great for technology, society, and the future. After CES 2023, Jonathan M. Gitlin published How many electric car chargers are enough? Read about EV charging network issues and infrastructure spending. Politics aside, rapid technological advances enable EV charging network expansion in American cities and abroad.
Finally, the UNEP's The Future of Electric Vehicles and Material Resources: A Foresight Brief. Understanding how lithium-ion batteries will affect EV sales is crucial. Climate change affects EVs in various ways, but electrification and mining trends stand out because more EVs demand more energy-intensive metals and rare earths. Areas & Producers has been publishing my electrification and mining trends articles. Follow me if you wish to write for the publication.
The Weekend Brief (TWB) will routinely cover tech, industrials, and global commodities in global markets, including stock markets. Read more about the future of key areas and critical producers of the global economy in Areas & Producers.
James Brockbank
3 years ago
Canonical URLs for Beginners
Canonicalization and canonical URLs are essential for SEO, and improper implementation can negatively impact your site's performance.
Canonical tags were introduced in 2009 to help webmasters with duplicate or similar content on multiple URLs.
To use canonical tags properly, you must understand their purpose, operation, and implementation.
Canonical URLs and Tags
Canonical tags tell search engines that a certain URL is a page's master copy. They specify a page's canonical URL. Webmasters can avoid duplicate content by linking to the "canonical" or "preferred" version of a page.
How are canonical tags and URLs different? Can these be specified differently?
Tags
Canonical tags are found in an HTML page's head></head> section.
<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.website.com/page/" />These can be self-referencing or reference another page's URL to consolidate signals.
Canonical tags and URLs are often used interchangeably, which is incorrect.
The rel="canonical" tag is the most common way to set canonical URLs, but it's not the only way.
Canonical URLs
What's a canonical link? Canonical link is the'master' URL for duplicate pages.
In Google's own words:
A canonical URL is the page Google thinks is most representative of duplicate pages on your site.
— Google Search Console Help
You can indicate your preferred canonical URL. For various reasons, Google may choose a different page than you.
When set correctly, the canonical URL is usually your specified URL.
Canonical URLs determine which page will be shown in search results (unless a duplicate is explicitly better for a user, like a mobile version).
Canonical URLs can be on different domains.
Other ways to specify canonical URLs
Canonical tags are the most common way to specify a canonical URL.
You can also set canonicals by:
Setting the HTTP header rel=canonical.
All pages listed in a sitemap are suggested as canonicals, but Google decides which pages are duplicates.
Redirects 301.
Google recommends these methods, but they aren't all appropriate for every situation, as we'll see below. Each has its own recommended uses.
Setting canonical URLs isn't required; if you don't, Google will use other signals to determine the best page version.
To control how your site appears in search engines and to avoid duplicate content issues, you should use canonicalization effectively.
Why Duplicate Content Exists
Before we discuss why you should use canonical URLs and how to specify them in popular CMSs, we must first explain why duplicate content exists. Nobody intentionally duplicates website content.
Content management systems create multiple URLs when you launch a page, have indexable versions of your site, or use dynamic URLs.
Assume the following URLs display the same content to a user:
A search engine sees eight duplicate pages, not one.
URLs #1 and #2: the CMS saves product URLs with and without the category name.
#3, #4, and #5 result from the site being accessible via HTTP, HTTPS, www, and non-www.
#6 is a subdomain mobile-friendly URL.
URL #7 lacks URL #2's trailing slash.
URL #8 uses a capital "A" instead of a lowercase one.
Duplicate content may also exist in URLs like:
https://www.website.com
https://www.website.com/index.php
Duplicate content is easy to create.
Canonical URLs help search engines identify different page variations as a single URL on many sites.
SEO Canonical URLs
Canonical URLs help you manage duplicate content that could affect site performance.
Canonical URLs are a technical SEO focus area for many reasons.
Specify URL for search results
When you set a canonical URL, you tell Google which page version to display.
Which would you click?
https://www.domain.com/page-1/
https://www.domain.com/index.php?id=2
First, probably.
Canonicals tell search engines which URL to rank.
Consolidate link signals on similar pages
When you have duplicate or nearly identical pages on your site, the URLs may get external links.
Canonical URLs consolidate multiple pages' link signals into a single URL.
This helps your site rank because signals from multiple URLs are consolidated into one.
Syndication management
Content is often syndicated to reach new audiences.
Canonical URLs consolidate ranking signals to prevent duplicate pages from ranking and ensure the original content ranks.
Avoid Googlebot duplicate page crawling
Canonical URLs ensure that Googlebot crawls your new pages rather than duplicated versions of the same one across mobile and desktop versions, for example.
Crawl budgets aren't an issue for most sites unless they have 100,000+ pages.
How to Correctly Implement the rel=canonical Tag
Using the header tag rel="canonical" is the most common way to specify canonical URLs.
Adding tags and HTML code may seem daunting if you're not a developer, but most CMS platforms allow canonicals out-of-the-box.
These URLs each have one product.
How to Correctly Implement a rel="canonical" HTTP Header
A rel="canonical" HTTP header can replace canonical tags.
This is how to implement a canonical URL for PDFs or non-HTML documents.
You can specify a canonical URL in your site's.htaccess file using the code below.
<Files "file-to-canonicalize.pdf"> Header add Link "< http://www.website.com/canonical-page/>; rel=\"canonical\"" </Files>301 redirects for canonical URLs
Google says 301 redirects can specify canonical URLs.
Only the canonical URL will exist if you use 301 redirects. This will redirect duplicates.
This is the best way to fix duplicate content across:
HTTPS and HTTP
Non-WWW and WWW
Trailing-Slash and Non-Trailing Slash URLs
On a single page, you should use canonical tags unless you can confidently delete and redirect the page.
Sitemaps' canonical URLs
Google assumes sitemap URLs are canonical, so don't include non-canonical URLs.
This does not guarantee canonical URLs, but is a best practice for sitemaps.
Best-practice Canonical Tag
Once you understand a few simple best practices for canonical tags, spotting and cleaning up duplicate content becomes much easier.
Always include:
One canonical URL per page
If you specify multiple canonical URLs per page, they will likely be ignored.
Correct Domain Protocol
If your site uses HTTPS, use this as the canonical URL. It's easy to reference the wrong protocol, so check for it to catch it early.
Trailing slash or non-trailing slash URLs
Be sure to include trailing slashes in your canonical URL if your site uses them.
Specify URLs other than WWW
Search engines see non-WWW and WWW URLs as duplicate pages, so use the correct one.
Absolute URLs
To ensure proper interpretation, canonical tags should use absolute URLs.
So use:
<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.website.com/page-a/" />And not:
<link rel="canonical" href="/page-a/" />If not canonicalizing, use self-referential canonical URLs.
When a page isn't canonicalizing to another URL, use self-referencing canonical URLs.
Canonical tags refer to themselves here.
Common Canonical Tags Mistakes
Here are some common canonical tag mistakes.
301 Canonicalization
Set the canonical URL as the redirect target, not a redirected URL.
Incorrect Domain Canonicalization
If your site uses HTTPS, don't set canonical URLs to HTTP.
Irrelevant Canonicalization
Canonicalize URLs to duplicate or near-identical content only.
SEOs sometimes try to pass link signals via canonical tags from unrelated content to increase rank. This isn't how canonicalization should be used and should be avoided.
Multiple Canonical URLs
Only use one canonical tag or URL per page; otherwise, they may all be ignored.
When overriding defaults in some CMSs, you may accidentally include two canonical tags in your page's <head>.
Pagination vs. Canonicalization
Incorrect pagination can cause duplicate content. Canonicalizing URLs to the first page isn't always the best solution.
Canonicalize to a 'view all' page.
How to Audit Canonical Tags (and Fix Issues)
Audit your site's canonical tags to find canonicalization issues.
SEMrush Site Audit can help. You'll find canonical tag checks in your website's site audit report.
Let's examine these issues and their solutions.
No Canonical Tag on AMP
Site Audit will flag AMP pages without canonical tags.
Canonicalization between AMP and non-AMP pages is important.
Add a rel="canonical" tag to each AMP page's head>.
No HTTPS redirect or canonical from HTTP homepage
Duplicate content issues will be flagged in the Site Audit if your site is accessible via HTTPS and HTTP.
You can fix this by 301 redirecting or adding a canonical tag to HTTP pages that references HTTPS.
Broken canonical links
Broken canonical links won't be considered canonical URLs.
This error could mean your canonical links point to non-existent pages, complicating crawling and indexing.
Update broken canonical links to the correct URLs.
Multiple canonical URLs
This error occurs when a page has multiple canonical URLs.
Remove duplicate tags and leave one.
Canonicalization is a key SEO concept, and using it incorrectly can hurt your site's performance.
Once you understand how it works, what it does, and how to find and fix issues, you can use it effectively to remove duplicate content from your site.
Canonicalization SEO Myths
You might also like
Karo Wanner
3 years ago
This is how I started my Twitter account.
My 12-day results look good.
Twitter seemed for old people and politicians.
I thought the platform would die soon like Facebook.
The platform's growth stalled around 300m users between 2015 and 2019.
In 2020, Twitter grew and now has almost 400m users.
Niharikaa Kaur Sodhi built a business on Twitter while I was away, despite its low popularity.
When I read about the success of Twitter users in the past 2 years, I created an account and a 3-month strategy.
I'll see if it's worth starting Twitter in 2022.
Late or perfect? I'll update you. Track my Twitter growth. You can find me here.
My Twitter Strategy
My Twitter goal is to build a community and recruit members for Mindful Monday.
I believe mindfulness is the only way to solve problems like poverty, inequality, and the climate crisis.
The power of mindfulness is my mission.
Mindful Monday is your weekly reminder to live in the present moment. I send mindfulness tips every Monday.
My Twitter profile promotes Mindful Monday and encourages people to join.
What I paid attention to:
I designed a brand-appropriate header to promote Mindful Monday.
Choose a profile picture. People want to know who you are.
I added my name as I do on Medium, Instagram, and emails. To stand out and be easily recognized, add an emoji if appropriate. Add what you want to be known for, such as Health Coach, Writer, or Newsletter.
People follow successful, trustworthy people. Describe any results you have. This could be views, followers, subscribers, or major news outlets. Create!
Tell readers what they'll get by following you. Can you help?
Add CTA to your profile. Your Twitter account's purpose. Give instructions. I placed my sign-up link next to the CTA to promote Mindful Monday. Josh Spector recommended this. (Thanks! Bonus tip: If you don't want the category to show in your profile, e.g. Entrepreneur, go to edit profile, edit professional profile, and choose 'Other'
Here's my Twitter:
I'm no expert, but I tried. Please share any additional Twitter tips and suggestions in the comments.
To hide your Revue newsletter subscriber count:
Join Revue. Select 'Hide Subscriber Count' in Account settings > Settings > Subscriber Count. Voila!
How frequently should you tweet?
1 to 20 Tweets per day, but consistency is key.
Stick to a daily tweet limit. Start with less and be consistent than the opposite.
I tweet 3 times per day. That's my comfort zone. Larger accounts tweet 5–7 times daily.
Do what works for you and that is the right amount.
Twitter is a long-term game, so plan your tweets for a year.
How to Batch Your Tweets?
Sunday batchs.
Sunday evenings take me 1.5 hours to create all my tweets for the week.
Use a word document and write down your posts. Podcasts, books, my own articles inspire me.
When I have a good idea or see a catchy Tweet, I take a screenshot.
To not copy but adapt.
Two pillars support my content:
(90% ~ 29 tweets per week) Inspirational quotes, mindfulness tips, zen stories, mistakes, myths, book recommendations, etc.
(10% 2 tweets per week) I share how I grow Mindful Monday with readers. This pillar promotes MM and behind-the-scenes content.
Second, I schedule all my Tweets using TweetDeck. I tweet at 7 a.m., 5 p.m., and 6 p.m.
Include Twitter Threads in your content strategy
Tweets are blog posts. In your first tweet, you include a headline, then tweet your content.
That’s how you create a series of connected Tweets.
What’s the point? You have more room to convince your reader you're an expert.
Add a call-to-action to your thread.
Follow for more like this
Newsletter signup (share your link)
Ask for retweet
One thread per week is my goal.
I'll schedule threads with Typefully. In the free version, you can schedule one Tweet, but that's fine.
Pin a thread to the top of your profile if it leads to your newsletter. So new readers see your highest-converting content first.
Tweet Medium posts
I also tweet Medium articles.
I schedule 1 weekly repost for 5 weeks after each publication. I share the same article daily for 5 weeks.
Every time I tweet, I include a different article quote, so even if the link is the same, the quote adds value.
Engage Other Experts
When you first create your account, few people will see it. Normal.
If you comment on other industry accounts, you can reach their large audience.
First, you need 50 to 100 followers. Here's my beginner tip.
15 minutes a day or when I have downtime, I comment on bigger accounts in my niche.
My 12-Day Results
Now let's look at the first data.
I had 32 followers on March 29. 12 followers in 11 days. I have 52 now.
Not huge, but growing rapidly.
Let's examine impressions/views.
As a newbie, I gained 4,300 impressions/views in 12 days. On Medium, I got fewer views.
The 1,6k impressions per day spike comes from a larger account I mentioned the day before. First, I was shocked to see the spike and unsure of its origin.
These results are promising given the effort required to be consistent on Twitter.
Let's see how my journey progresses. I'll keep you posted.
Tweeters, Does this content strategy make sense? What's wrong? Comment below.
Let's support each other on Twitter. Here's me.
Which Twitter strategy works for you in 2022?
This post is a summary. Read the full article here
Jano le Roux
3 years ago
The Real Reason Adobe Just Paid $20 billion for Figma
Sketch or Figma?
Designers are pissed.
The beast ate the beauty.
Figma deserves $20B.
Do designers deserve Adobe?
Adobe devours new creative tools and spits them out with a slimy Adobe aftertaste.
Frame.io — $1.3B
Magento — $1.7B
Macromedia — $3.6B
Nothing compares to the risky $20B acquisition.
If they can't be beaten, buy them.
And then make them boring.
Adobe's everywhere.
Like that friend who dabbles in everything creatively, there's not enough time to master one thing.
Figma was Adobe's thigh-mounted battle axe.
a UX design instrument with a sizable free tier.
a UX design tool with a simple and quick user interface.
a tool for fluid collaboration in user experience design.
a web-based UX design tool that functions well.
a UX design tool with a singular goal of perfection.
UX design software that replaced Adobe XD.
Adobe XD could do many of Figma's things, but it didn't focus on the details. This is a major issue when working with detail-oriented professionals.
UX designers.
Design enthusiasts first used Figma. More professionals used it. Institutions taught it. Finally, major brands adopted Figma.
Adobe hated that.
Adobe dispatched a team of lawyers to resolve the Figma issue, as big companies do. Figma didn’t bite for months.
Oh no.
Figma resisted.
Figma helped designers leave Adobe. Figma couldn't replace Photoshop, but most designers used it to remove backgrounds.
Online background removal tools improved.
The Figma problem grew into a thorn, a knife, and a battle ax in Adobe's soft inner thigh.
Figma appeared to be going public. Adobe couldn’t allow that. It bought Figma for $20B during the IPO drought.
Adobe has a new issue—investors are upset.
The actual cause of investors' ire toward Adobe
Spoiler: The math just doesn’t add up.
According to Adobe's press release, Figma's annual recurring revenue (ARR) is $400M and growing rapidly.
The $20B valuation requires a 50X revenue multiple, which is unheard of.
Venture capitalists typically use:
10% to 29% growth per year: ARR multiplied by 1 to 5
30% to 99% growth per year: ARR multiplied by 6 to 10
100% to 400% growth per year: ARR multiplied by 10 to 20
Showing an investor a 50x multiple is like telling friends you saw a UFO. They'll think you're crazy.
Adobe's stock fell immediately after the acquisition because it didn't make sense to a number-cruncher.
Designers started a Tweet storm in the digital town hall where VCs and designers often meet.
Adobe acquired Workfront for $1.5 billion at the end of 2020. This purchase made sense for investors.
Many investors missed the fact that Adobe is acquiring Figma not only for its ARR but also for its brilliant collaboration tech.
Adobe could use Figmas web app technology to make more products web-based to compete with Canva.
Figma's high-profile clients could switch to Adobe's enterprise software.
However, questions arise:
Will Adobe make Figma boring?
Will Adobe tone down Figma to boost XD?
Would you ditch Adobe and Figma for Sketch?
Andy Walker
2 years ago
Why personal ambition and poor leadership caused Google layoffs
Google announced 6% layoffs recently (or 12,000 people). This aligns it with most tech companies. A publicly contrite CEO explained that they had overhired during the COVID-19 pandemic boom and had to address it, but they were sorry and took full responsibility. I thought this was "bullshit" too. Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and others must feel similarly. I spent 10 years at Google, and these things don't reflect well on the company's leaders.
All publicly listed companies have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of their shareholders. Dodge vs. Ford Motor Company established this (1919). Henry Ford wanted to reduce shareholder payments to offer cheaper cars and better wages. Ford stated.
My ambition is to employ still more men, to spread the benefits of this industrial system to the greatest possible number, to help them build up their lives and their homes. To do this we are putting the greatest share of our profits back in the business.
The Dodge brothers, who owned 10% of Ford, opposed this and sued Ford for the payments to start their own company. They won, preventing Ford from raising prices or salaries. If you have a vocal group of shareholders with the resources to sue you, you must prove you are acting in their best interests. Companies prioritize shareholders. Giving activist investors a stick to threaten you almost enshrines short-term profit over long-term thinking.
This underpins Google's current issues. Institutional investors who can sue Google see it as a wasteful company they can exploit. That doesn't mean you have to maximize profits (thanks to those who pointed out my ignorance of US corporate law in the comments and on HN), but it allows pressure. I feel for those navigating this. This is about unrestrained capitalism.
When Google went public, Larry Page and Sergey Brin knew the risks and worked hard to keep control. In their Founders' Letter to investors, they tried to set expectations for the company's operations.
Our long-term focus as a private company has paid off. Public companies do the same. We believe outside pressures lead companies to sacrifice long-term opportunities to meet quarterly market expectations.
The company has transformed since that letter. The company has nearly 200,000 full-time employees and a trillion-dollar market cap. Large investors have bought company stock because it has been a good long-term bet. Why are they restless now?
Other big tech companies emerged and fought for top talent. This has caused rising compensation packages. Google has also grown rapidly (roughly 22,000 people hired to the end of 2022). At $300,000 median compensation, those 22,000 people added $6.6 billion in salary overheads in 2022. Exorbitant. If the company still makes $16 billion every quarter, maybe not. Investors wonder if this value has returned.
Investors are right. Google uses people wastefully. However, by bluntly reducing headcount, they're not addressing the root causes and hurting themselves. No studies show that downsizing this way boosts productivity. There is plenty of evidence that they'll lose out because people will be risk-averse and distrust their leadership.
The company's approach also stinks. Finding out that you no longer have a job because you can’t log in anymore (sometimes in cases where someone is on call for protecting your production systems) is no way to fire anyone. Being with a narcissistic sociopath is like being abused. First, you receive praise and fancy perks for making the cut. You're fired by text and ghosted. You're told to appreciate the generous severance package. This firing will devastate managers and teams. This type of firing will take years to recover self-esteem. Senior management contributed to this. They chose the expedient answer, possibly by convincing themselves they were managing risk and taking the Macbeth approach of “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well It were done quickly”.
Recap. Google's leadership did a stupid thing—mass firing—in a stupid way. How do we get rid of enough people to make investors happier? and "have 6% less people." Empathetic leaders should not emulate Elon Musk. There is no humane way to fire 12,000 people, but there are better ways. Why is Google so wasteful?
Ambition answers this. There aren't enough VP positions for a group of highly motivated, ambitious, and (increasingly) ruthless people. I’ve loitered around the edges of this world and a large part of my value was to insulate my teams from ever having to experience it. It’s like Game of Thrones played out through email and calendar and over video call.
Your company must look a certain way to be promoted to director or higher. You need the right people at the right levels under you. Long-term, growing your people will naturally happen if you're working on important things. This takes time, and you're never more than 6–18 months from a reorg that could start you over. Ambitious people also tend to be impatient. So, what do you do?
Hiring and vanity projects. To shape your company, you hire at the right levels. You value vanity metrics like active users over product utility. Your promo candidates get through by subverting the promotion process. In your quest for growth, you avoid performance managing people out. You avoid confronting toxic peers because you need their support for promotion. Your cargo cult gets you there.
Its ease makes Google wasteful. Since they don't face market forces, the employees don't see it as a business. Why would you do when the ads business is so profitable? Complacency causes senior leaders to prioritize their own interests. Empires collapse. Personal ambition often trumped doing the right thing for users, the business, or employees. Leadership's ambition over business is the root cause. Vanity metrics, mass hiring, and vague promises have promoted people to VP. Google goes above and beyond to protect senior leaders.
The decision-makers and beneficiaries are not the layoffees. Stock price increase beneficiaries. The people who will post on LinkedIn how it is about misjudging the market and how they’re so sorry and take full responsibility. While accumulating wealth, the dark room dwellers decide who stays and who goes. The billionaire investors. Google should start by addressing its bloated senior management, but — as they say — turkeys don't vote for Christmas. It should examine its wastefulness and make tough choices to fix it. A 6% cut is a blunt tool that admits you're not running your business properly. why aren’t the people running the business the ones shortly to be entering the job market?
This won't fix Google's wastefulness. The executives may never regain trust after their approach. Suppressed creativity. Business won't improve. Google will have lost its founding vision and us all. Large investors know they can force Google's CEO to yield. The rich will get richer and rationalize leaving 12,000 people behind. Cycles repeat.
It doesn’t have to be this way. In 2013, Nintendo's CEO said he wouldn't fire anyone for shareholders. Switch debuted in 2017. Nintendo's stock has increased by nearly five times, or 19% a year (including the drop most of the stock market experienced last year). Google wasted 12,000 talented people. To please rich people.