“A Google engineer who just left the company after nearly 13 years criticized it Wednesday for becoming ‘100% competitor-focused’ and said the company ‘can no longer innovate,'” Jillian D’Onfro reports for CNBC.
“Steve Yegge, who joined Google from Amazon in 2005, wrote a blog post about his decision to quit the company, saying it has become too focused on competitors instead of customers,” D’Onfro reports. “He said product launches such as its smart speaker, Home, its chat app Allo and its Android Instant Apps copy Amazon Echo, Facebook-owned WhatsApp and WeChat, respectively.”
“He said employees don’t set aside enough time to regularly interact with customers, instead relying on competitor activity to guide decisions about what people want,” D’Onfro reports. “The competition playing out most obviously in recent months has been between Amazon and Google. The two companies have had a race to the bottom on cloud pricing, and spats around their respective smart speakers, with Google blocking YouTube from working on Amazon’s FireTV and Amazon refusing to sell Google’s products. Google also just launchedits own audiobook service instead of integrating its smart speaker with Amazon’s offering.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: They haven’t innovated since they piggybacked an ad network onto a search engine. Now they just abuse that monopoly for as long as they can finance candidates who’ll help them avoid antitrust proceedings. And, no, hastily rejiggering a Blackberry clone into a bad iPhone knockoff isn’t innovation.
The main reason I left Google is that they can no longer innovate. They’ve pretty much lost that ability. — Steve Yegge
‘Tis always nice to see some honestly from the Do Know Evil contingent, ex- as it were.
Read Yegge’s post here.
SEE ALSO:
Former Android head Andy Rubin leaving Google – October 31, 2014
Why Google really, truly, deeply hates Apple – May 30, 2014
Prior to Steve Jobs unveiling of Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android didn’t support touchscreen input – April 14, 2014
Before iPhone, Google’s plan was a Java button phone, Android docs reveal – April 14, 2014
How Google reacted when Steve Jobs revealed the revolutionary iPhone – December 19, 2013
Apple to ITC: Android started at Apple while Andy Rubin worked for us – September 2, 2011