You will be hated
I work at Microsoft now. There, I've come clean. Are there places people would rather be? Yes, most everyone would rather work at Google or Facebook. Nonetheless, I do work at Microsoft. I am hated for it, even by my own family.
There is a certain mission I see now. I'm not up to it, and I alone can't accomplish this mission, but it is important enough that I feel it is my duty to help. Google, much like the Microsoft of 10 years prior, is rising to become a monopolistic power. Did they achieve that power fairly? Possibly, but business, no matter who you are, is never really fair. It's about taking others' innovations for your own, marketing your way to build a brand and build success, and taking advantage of people and opportunities. Much like Microsoft's savvy negotiations with IBM that propelled it into the world sphere, it was Google's negotiations with Yahoo from 2000-2004 that got them widespread popularity, brand power, and subsequent effective lock in.
Google's success is not the focus of what I regard as my mission, though. The focus is the future of freedom of information online. A few have begun to question just how good it is for search to be effectively controlled by one company (Michael Arrington and CNet, most notably). What few realize when talking about Google's product is that it has a great deal of manual input and tweaking (see why here). Taking human inputs into a search engine is much more fallible and vulnerable to bias than algorithmic search, even though algorithmic search can be biased subtly by its designers and implementers. Even taking user click data into account fails to eliminate the problem of populations self-biasing themselves through Lotka's law. Google's search has tweakable inputs, and they can be used to adjust search results.
With so many people nowadays relying on search as the foundation for finding information online, it is not far exaggeration to say that search results themselves and their ranking have the power to influence the way people think. This has extremely deep and far-reaching ramifications, affecting education, politics, science, and culture. Any goal that we have grown accustomed to using the internet as a vehicle for achieving can be influenced and biased by the whims of search providers.
The only true solution to this problem is to have a competitive search market. No single entity can ever be allowed to control it; a monopoly effectively over information is the most dangerous I can possibly imagine, far outstripping the threat posed by a monopoly over almost any single product or commodity. This is, in my opinion, the deepest problem of our generation.
Having worked at a search startup that has since been forced out from the space, the problem of scale, relevance, and precision will cost any company at least $100 million if not more just to get to the level of Ask, the smallest "major" player in the market. No VCs will ever give an 8 figure sum of money to fund a startup to go against one of the largest technology firms in the world. No startup, no matter how smart or well-connected its founders, will ever raise the capital necessary to fight effectively in the space.
With Yahoo's revenues now tied to Google's, my worst fears seem to be coming true. I sincerely hope Yahoo will someday become a competitive player in search again, but with the recent uncertainty caused by the Microhoo botch-up and their desperate, seemingly childish, measures to turn around events, I am very unconvinced. Yahoo, even without the Google advertising deal, does not have the free cash, resources, and dedication to battle against Google; company insiders I know speak of mass demotivation, chronic strategy problems, and politics that make even Microsoft's look like games in a grade school playground.
Some point at Facebook being the next disruption to Google, and it very well may be. Yet, their continued 8 figure annual costs, cavalier attitude toward user privacy, and continuous failure at effective monetization make me wonder. Facebook will likely be important in the future, but if anything, with its walled garden, it is part of the problem and not part of the solution to assuring the future of information online.
As sad as it may sound, Microsoft is the last and only entity that can stand now against Google and their towering market share. It is the one and only company that can stand against Google in search. For that reason, because I am committed to a deeper problem that is bigger than any company, I work at Microsoft. Even if we fail to gain traction against Google, the existence of a viable competitor serves as a means to keep Google's potential biases in check.
I know that this stance is unpopular. Microsoft is not well liked and, for its past actions, justifiably so. I've grown, though, to take it, to endure the barbs of people's ire without contempt or question. As part of Microsoft, we are hated, vilified, cursed at, and rallied against. They chase doggedly after us with their lawyers, their bankers, and their lobbyists. The mission, though, is something bigger and much more important. My very existence and employment in the search division at Microsoft is in defense of detractors whose online freedom we help ensure. It is a sacrifice, but it is also a duty that in our day and age we cannot afford to ignore.
There is a certain mission I see now. I'm not up to it, and I alone can't accomplish this mission, but it is important enough that I feel it is my duty to help. Google, much like the Microsoft of 10 years prior, is rising to become a monopolistic power. Did they achieve that power fairly? Possibly, but business, no matter who you are, is never really fair. It's about taking others' innovations for your own, marketing your way to build a brand and build success, and taking advantage of people and opportunities. Much like Microsoft's savvy negotiations with IBM that propelled it into the world sphere, it was Google's negotiations with Yahoo from 2000-2004 that got them widespread popularity, brand power, and subsequent effective lock in.
Google's success is not the focus of what I regard as my mission, though. The focus is the future of freedom of information online. A few have begun to question just how good it is for search to be effectively controlled by one company (Michael Arrington and CNet, most notably). What few realize when talking about Google's product is that it has a great deal of manual input and tweaking (see why here). Taking human inputs into a search engine is much more fallible and vulnerable to bias than algorithmic search, even though algorithmic search can be biased subtly by its designers and implementers. Even taking user click data into account fails to eliminate the problem of populations self-biasing themselves through Lotka's law. Google's search has tweakable inputs, and they can be used to adjust search results.
With so many people nowadays relying on search as the foundation for finding information online, it is not far exaggeration to say that search results themselves and their ranking have the power to influence the way people think. This has extremely deep and far-reaching ramifications, affecting education, politics, science, and culture. Any goal that we have grown accustomed to using the internet as a vehicle for achieving can be influenced and biased by the whims of search providers.
The only true solution to this problem is to have a competitive search market. No single entity can ever be allowed to control it; a monopoly effectively over information is the most dangerous I can possibly imagine, far outstripping the threat posed by a monopoly over almost any single product or commodity. This is, in my opinion, the deepest problem of our generation.
Having worked at a search startup that has since been forced out from the space, the problem of scale, relevance, and precision will cost any company at least $100 million if not more just to get to the level of Ask, the smallest "major" player in the market. No VCs will ever give an 8 figure sum of money to fund a startup to go against one of the largest technology firms in the world. No startup, no matter how smart or well-connected its founders, will ever raise the capital necessary to fight effectively in the space.
With Yahoo's revenues now tied to Google's, my worst fears seem to be coming true. I sincerely hope Yahoo will someday become a competitive player in search again, but with the recent uncertainty caused by the Microhoo botch-up and their desperate, seemingly childish, measures to turn around events, I am very unconvinced. Yahoo, even without the Google advertising deal, does not have the free cash, resources, and dedication to battle against Google; company insiders I know speak of mass demotivation, chronic strategy problems, and politics that make even Microsoft's look like games in a grade school playground.
Some point at Facebook being the next disruption to Google, and it very well may be. Yet, their continued 8 figure annual costs, cavalier attitude toward user privacy, and continuous failure at effective monetization make me wonder. Facebook will likely be important in the future, but if anything, with its walled garden, it is part of the problem and not part of the solution to assuring the future of information online.
As sad as it may sound, Microsoft is the last and only entity that can stand now against Google and their towering market share. It is the one and only company that can stand against Google in search. For that reason, because I am committed to a deeper problem that is bigger than any company, I work at Microsoft. Even if we fail to gain traction against Google, the existence of a viable competitor serves as a means to keep Google's potential biases in check.
I know that this stance is unpopular. Microsoft is not well liked and, for its past actions, justifiably so. I've grown, though, to take it, to endure the barbs of people's ire without contempt or question. As part of Microsoft, we are hated, vilified, cursed at, and rallied against. They chase doggedly after us with their lawyers, their bankers, and their lobbyists. The mission, though, is something bigger and much more important. My very existence and employment in the search division at Microsoft is in defense of detractors whose online freedom we help ensure. It is a sacrifice, but it is also a duty that in our day and age we cannot afford to ignore.