Monday, August 30, 2004
HP sells Apple iPods, and installs iTunes on every PC they sell. Sounds good to me.
Friday, August 20, 2004
When google reduced the price of their IPO. Was I surprised? Of course not. I have been talking for months about their inferior technology and inability to ship quality products.
When they initially announced the $130 share price and $40 billion market cap, I was amazed. A higher market cap than yahoo, who provides all the google services plus countless others. And 3 times Apple, a company that produces the best computers int he world, is revolutionaizing the music industry, makes the best OS, a company whose users never go back and tell the world "i love my mac"
But the stock market is based on money and earnings, not technology and innovation. So lets compare to yahoo, another company who google thought they were worth more. Yahoo provdes everything google does (search, ad placement, etc), has better technology in those areas (IMHO, google lost their lead a while back), and they provide countless other features that are very well done.
I use My Yahoo for my stocks, spam email, weather, maps, news, movie listings, etc etc. Google doesn't provide any of these services, and what they may have a lead in (search) has ZERO barrier to entry. Yahoo not only provides these services, but they do it pretty damn well. For example, MapQuest sucks. Yahoo maps takes the same database and makes it much easier to use.
Yesterday Yahoo released RSS feeds as one of their portal options. So now I can go to my.yahoo.com for my news, stocks, email, weather, etc etc etc AND any RSS feeds from people's blogs and websites. Go yahoo.
So let's look at google's services. Their search is mediocre. Froogle sucks more than Windows does as an operating system. News is cool but Yahoo did that years ago. So what else is there? Orkut? or Orkut? Why is everything else Google has ever done still a beta? I was talking to a Google engineer once and he was mentioning the new search options like "5feet in meters" or typing in a UPS tracking code. That stuff is convenient, but would take 1 person 1 week to write and test.
At Stanford, the great Nick Parlante taught us the 80/20 rule. In a large CS project, 80% of the work takes 80% of the time, and 20% of the work takes 80% of the time. I felt this pain while working on Bunnyworld, and it's this problem that brought down Wimpus. Google has not figured this out yet. They continue to do 80% of the work on products, take them to a point where you can maybe say "that's kind of cool" but they are completely incapable of finishing, polishing, and shipping a product. All the PHDs at Google might be able to write crazy code and algorithms, but they can't ship a single thing.
For example, GMail. If they were able to come out the door on day one and make it available to the public, everyone and their mom would have switched away from their 2MB yahoo and hotmail accounts. They would have emailed their friends their new contact info, and GMail would have been on top. Done deal, Google's first creation of a barrier to entry.
But no. Instead they beta the software, offer it to the "lucky" few, and give yahoo and hotmail enough time to bump their storage just enough to make GMail worthless. To all those who use GMail now, I wonder if it ever will be a final product.
Maybe that's why Google sends their employees to watch Steve Jobs deliver Apple keynotes and release new, innovate, ground breaking products every few months.
Do no evil? Google works their employees to the ground, ships zero products, entices people with petty perks. They claim to balance life and work: 70 hour weeks, free laundry, food, retreats. No balance there, just a college dorm experience.
What bothers me most is, like Aki says, Google thinks it's hot shit (as seen by their self valuation at $40 billion) AND OTHER PEOPLE BELIEVE IT. They are well liked and trusted by most people, and I see no reason why. They do ad placement! Yuck.
What will happen in the next 6 months? Maybe they will sky rocket and be worth 30, 40, 50 billion. Hype goes a long way.
Sachin Agarwal is an Apple employee with no Google stock. He has been recommending Yahoo search (formerly alltheweb.com) for over a year. He believes in cool products and innovation, and wishes there was a new stock exchange where great companies are rewarded for accomplishing great things, even if they don't make tons of money (because shitty companies will just copy them and cut the price). Jealous? Sure. Bitter? Yes. Just doesn't seem right.
Update: It will take some time, but things will become public.
When they initially announced the $130 share price and $40 billion market cap, I was amazed. A higher market cap than yahoo, who provides all the google services plus countless others. And 3 times Apple, a company that produces the best computers int he world, is revolutionaizing the music industry, makes the best OS, a company whose users never go back and tell the world "i love my mac"
But the stock market is based on money and earnings, not technology and innovation. So lets compare to yahoo, another company who google thought they were worth more. Yahoo provdes everything google does (search, ad placement, etc), has better technology in those areas (IMHO, google lost their lead a while back), and they provide countless other features that are very well done.
I use My Yahoo for my stocks, spam email, weather, maps, news, movie listings, etc etc. Google doesn't provide any of these services, and what they may have a lead in (search) has ZERO barrier to entry. Yahoo not only provides these services, but they do it pretty damn well. For example, MapQuest sucks. Yahoo maps takes the same database and makes it much easier to use.
Yesterday Yahoo released RSS feeds as one of their portal options. So now I can go to my.yahoo.com for my news, stocks, email, weather, etc etc etc AND any RSS feeds from people's blogs and websites. Go yahoo.
So let's look at google's services. Their search is mediocre. Froogle sucks more than Windows does as an operating system. News is cool but Yahoo did that years ago. So what else is there? Orkut? or Orkut? Why is everything else Google has ever done still a beta? I was talking to a Google engineer once and he was mentioning the new search options like "5feet in meters" or typing in a UPS tracking code. That stuff is convenient, but would take 1 person 1 week to write and test.
At Stanford, the great Nick Parlante taught us the 80/20 rule. In a large CS project, 80% of the work takes 80% of the time, and 20% of the work takes 80% of the time. I felt this pain while working on Bunnyworld, and it's this problem that brought down Wimpus. Google has not figured this out yet. They continue to do 80% of the work on products, take them to a point where you can maybe say "that's kind of cool" but they are completely incapable of finishing, polishing, and shipping a product. All the PHDs at Google might be able to write crazy code and algorithms, but they can't ship a single thing.
For example, GMail. If they were able to come out the door on day one and make it available to the public, everyone and their mom would have switched away from their 2MB yahoo and hotmail accounts. They would have emailed their friends their new contact info, and GMail would have been on top. Done deal, Google's first creation of a barrier to entry.
But no. Instead they beta the software, offer it to the "lucky" few, and give yahoo and hotmail enough time to bump their storage just enough to make GMail worthless. To all those who use GMail now, I wonder if it ever will be a final product.
Maybe that's why Google sends their employees to watch Steve Jobs deliver Apple keynotes and release new, innovate, ground breaking products every few months.
Do no evil? Google works their employees to the ground, ships zero products, entices people with petty perks. They claim to balance life and work: 70 hour weeks, free laundry, food, retreats. No balance there, just a college dorm experience.
What bothers me most is, like Aki says, Google thinks it's hot shit (as seen by their self valuation at $40 billion) AND OTHER PEOPLE BELIEVE IT. They are well liked and trusted by most people, and I see no reason why. They do ad placement! Yuck.
What will happen in the next 6 months? Maybe they will sky rocket and be worth 30, 40, 50 billion. Hype goes a long way.
Sachin Agarwal is an Apple employee with no Google stock. He has been recommending Yahoo search (formerly alltheweb.com) for over a year. He believes in cool products and innovation, and wishes there was a new stock exchange where great companies are rewarded for accomplishing great things, even if they don't make tons of money (because shitty companies will just copy them and cut the price). Jealous? Sure. Bitter? Yes. Just doesn't seem right.
Update: It will take some time, but things will become public.
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
A great weekend in the city. You know it's good when you make three trips to Happy Donuts.
Friday I went to my first ever baseball game. I saw the Giants lose to St. Louis. It was a lot of fun. I'm actually starting to enjoy baseball. SBC Park is gorgeous, and much smaller than I expected. They serve great beer, and the workers are really friendly.
After the game I met up with Aki (at Happy Donuts) and we had a few drinks at the Dubliner.
Saturday I went to Aki's place for a BBQ. I had some delicious pineapple burgers. I then headed over to Patrick's place in the Sunset where we had a beer and moved on to Park Chow for dinner. After dinner we went to Zeitgeist, an awesome biker bar with a great outdoor area, and good beer.
I took a cab from Zeitgeist to Happy Donuts. I gave the cabby every last dollar I had. I wanted a sandwich at Happy but I had no cash. I asked the worker if I could pay him tomorrow. He said that was fine. I ate the sandwich as I stumbled home. I love this place.
The next day I woke up and went back to Happy Donuts to pay for the previous night, and get another sandwich for lunch. They have great, freshly made turkey sandwiches for $3.50.
After that I headed to the SF zoo. I wanted to go to the zoo since I moved to the city and I finally found the time to do it.
I can't believe I waited this long to live in the city, and I can't believe it's already been two months. There's no way I'll be moving out of here after a year.
Also, I'm crazy about the Nan-n-Curry. I ate there three times last week. The food is great and super cheap. They don't even add up the bill, they just sorta estimate it and round down. Last time, for four people, the guy was like, "Eh, $20 is fine." Sweet.
Also, Taqueria Cancun has the best burritos. I ate there two times last week. Hmmmm.
Check out the pictures from the weekend
Friday I went to my first ever baseball game. I saw the Giants lose to St. Louis. It was a lot of fun. I'm actually starting to enjoy baseball. SBC Park is gorgeous, and much smaller than I expected. They serve great beer, and the workers are really friendly.
After the game I met up with Aki (at Happy Donuts) and we had a few drinks at the Dubliner.
Saturday I went to Aki's place for a BBQ. I had some delicious pineapple burgers. I then headed over to Patrick's place in the Sunset where we had a beer and moved on to Park Chow for dinner. After dinner we went to Zeitgeist, an awesome biker bar with a great outdoor area, and good beer.
I took a cab from Zeitgeist to Happy Donuts. I gave the cabby every last dollar I had. I wanted a sandwich at Happy but I had no cash. I asked the worker if I could pay him tomorrow. He said that was fine. I ate the sandwich as I stumbled home. I love this place.
The next day I woke up and went back to Happy Donuts to pay for the previous night, and get another sandwich for lunch. They have great, freshly made turkey sandwiches for $3.50.
After that I headed to the SF zoo. I wanted to go to the zoo since I moved to the city and I finally found the time to do it.
I can't believe I waited this long to live in the city, and I can't believe it's already been two months. There's no way I'll be moving out of here after a year.
Also, I'm crazy about the Nan-n-Curry. I ate there three times last week. The food is great and super cheap. They don't even add up the bill, they just sorta estimate it and round down. Last time, for four people, the guy was like, "Eh, $20 is fine." Sweet.
Also, Taqueria Cancun has the best burritos. I ate there two times last week. Hmmmm.
Check out the pictures from the weekend