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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35578 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 20, 2023

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Satya is a clear counterexample, yes (or as you say, he comes from a different career track? Both him and Pichai started out as hard engineers and pivoted into management, both come from higher-tier Brahmin lineages… @2rafa, do you know anything? I've only heard that Pichai has great… mediating skills).

I am thinking of some other high-ranking manager who has departed recently; but his name can't escape the tip of my tongue. Maybe some Ramakrishnan.

In general I am curious as to the reason for people like Pichai's meteoric careers. It can't be that easy to become CEO of a trillion-class corporation with major strategic value, the competition must be immense. Why have Brin and Page, with Schmidt's input, decided to leave him in charge?

Both him and Pichai started out as hard engineers and pivoted into management,

As the best people are wont to do. Very little beats strong technical ability combined with good people skills.

Google's board was heavily influenced by Bill Campbell, a Svengali-like figure in Silicon Valley. He like the cut of Sundar's jib and chose him as the bright young thing that should be promoted. Most of Google's board was in awe of Campbell, so gave the nod to Sundar when it came time to put a PM in charge of Chrome, replace Andy at Android, replace Alan as boss of all engineering, and then replace Larry as CEO. It is difficult to capture quite how much influence Campbell had on Google's promotion decisions. Even after his death, Google's board would ask "What would Bill say?" Why Campbell liked Sundar is another question entirely. Sundar is not technical at all - his undergraduate and masters is in materials science, which has nothing to do with IT (well, outside of chips). Bill liked non-technical, slightly unpolished people. It may be that Sundar was the one he met that day.

When I think of Pichai's character and reputation, I think of my mother, who ascended to a relatively senior position (after taking several years out to have children) in a very large business by being relatively quiet and speaking softly and authoritatively at the end of meetings while the men around her would shout and argue and fight.

I don't know your mother, who may well speak softly and authoritatively, but I don't think Sundar is like that at all. He always managed up, and once he achieved positions of power, completely ignored his reports. No-one claims that Android was more successful under Sundar than it was under Google. Then, when Sundar ran all of engineering, I don't think anyone can point to something achieved during that time, other than the huge success of AI research. It is hard to give Sundar credit for that, since he completely mismanaged bringing that work to product, and let Google, who did most of the research, be eclipsed by OpenAI. Since he became CEO in 2015, it is hard to point to a successful new Google endeavor or product. This contrasts with Satya, who meets with perhaps too many people. If Sundar is known for anything, it is being indecisive and failing to make decisions. On the other hand, not making any decisions turned out quite well for Google for at least the first five years of his tenure. We will see if Sundar's unwillingness to act resolutely is Google's undoing.

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