
Lars Rasmussen: Why I quit Google to join Facebook - mcbain
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/biz-tech/why-i-quit-google-to-join-facebook-lars-rasmussen-20101101-1799q.html
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sfphotoarts
From the article Lars says that facebook has changed the world. I don't see
this being the case. So a lot of people like to see what their friends are
doing and play games that challenge the average sheep's IQ, but what does
facebook do that is world changing? Aside from keeping an enormous number
people 'busy' for hours a day that might otherwise have been spent studying,
working or actually doing things? I am skeptical about facebook's benefit to
the world as anything more that entertainment du jour. Maybe Lars was just
interested in giving wave another try under the facebook brand instead. It
certainly might make more sense in a social connectivity company. I'm not
arguing that facebook isn't very popular, just with point that it's world
changing. Regardless, I wish him all the best in his new job.

~~~
iskander
Setting aside your personal judgments on how other people spend their time, do
you actually not think that facebook has had a large impact on how (primarily
younger) people socialize, understand each other, and think about their
relationships?

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kingkilr
I don't think so, I'm 20, and I remember when I was 12 or so I had friends
that spent hours talking with each other on the phone at night, now I'm pretty
sure they spend it on Facebook chatting. I'm not convinced there's been any
fundamental change, just shifting some deck chairs.

~~~
abjr
When I was 20 (in 1995), social networking was done through telnet...sitting
in the computer lab until the sun come up chatting away with strangers at
other universities. I still keep in contact with a few of the people I met
that way, but not through Facebook. I still don't even have an account!

~~~
dasil003
I was just gonna say... back in _myyy_ day, when I was 12, in 1990, we
socialized by dialing into BBSes and spamming Usenet via asynchronous relay.
Clearly the GP runs in social circles heavily involved in some sort of ancient
technology cult; "tele-phone"?

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apu
Something I notice in common about many of these stories is how much people
cite Zuckerberg in particular as a reason for joining/liking Facebook. I don't
see anything like it for Larry or Sergey at Google.

My guess is that Zuckerberg has his own "Reality Distortion Field", albeit of
a very different style than the original (Steven Jobs'), and this is a major
factor in the recent migratory wave.

~~~
aresant
The incredible potential for growth in stock value can't hurt either . . .

Many folks inside and out think that FB still hasn't found its "adsense" -
when and if they do even late comers to the party will live out their days
like sultans.

~~~
timr
Call me a cynic, but I think that Zynga has found Facebook's AdSense.

~~~
patio11
I think you're absolutely right, and given the amounts they invest in customer
acquisition for every new title plus the 30% Facebook Credits rake, that's all
Facebook really needs.

~~~
timr
If Facebook is going to become the next Google off of Zynga's crumbs, then
screw Facebook: I want to be invested in Zynga.

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credo
After 6 years and after the stressful situation he describes with Google Wave,
it is reasonable for anyone to make a clean break and try out something new

Among the things I find interesting - the guy was the co-founder of what is
now Google Maps (after Google's acquisition). However, now, he has chosen to
join Facebook instead of setting out on his own new venture.

Perhaps he could have a bigger impact if he founded a new company.

~~~
jacquesm
You mean bigger impact than working together with the #1 website in the past
and the #2 of the moment ?

I fail to see how he could possibly hope to achieve that.

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greglockwood
Isn't that line of thinking antithetical to the startup business as a whole?

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jacquesm
Not at his level. He'll have all the tools and the manpower at his disposal to
realize his dreams. It's not as though having worked at google or sold 'maps'
is any guarantee for future projects to be either successful or funded. See
'Cuil'.

~~~
nostrademons
Well, Cuil is actually a counterexample to the "funded" part of your
statement. They raised a crazy amount of money considering their lack of
accomplishment.

I think Lars could get funding from just about any investor in the valley, if
he wanted to start a new venture. But Norvig said it best (paraphrasing): "If
you want to accomplish interesting things, go where the _data_ is." Right now,
FaceBook has one of the most interesting data sets on the planet, possibly
rivaling Google's. If Lars wanted to replicate that, he needs to build a
product that's useful enough to convince everybody to give him their data.
That's non-trivial. It's easier just to join a company that already owns the
data and then figure out interesting things to do with it.

~~~
gizmomagico
Wouldn't it be possible to make a startup that wasn't based on covertly
collecting little worker ants' personal information? I'd like to see something
else for a change.

~~~
nostrademons
In software? What data would it run on? Software doesn't _do_ anything without
data.

I suppose you could have something like the PC revolution, where the industry
was still based around manipulating data, but the data lives on your personal
property. But that ship has sailed: personal computers have been available for
35 years, so pretty much all applications that rely on one person's data being
manipulated in isolation by themselves have already been discovered. The
interesting work now is when you collect patterns of data among many users,
and that requires that many users be willing to give you their data.

~~~
gizmomagico
_In software? What data would it run on? Software doesn't do anything without
data._

You say it like our personal information is the only data in town.

Of course, _any app_ needs data, but it can be _anything_.

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RK
I'm always a little sad to see good talent go to Facebook, because I have no
intention of using their products. I would rather see that talent working
somewhere else.

~~~
natep
Right, like Diaspora, or any of the many Facebook alternatives, for a start.

~~~
alokm
I am guessing he means social networking sites in general. (if not then its
only my opinion :) ). IMO facebook et al are not that "productive" as compared
to google. Sure it does add value to your social life but compare it to the
technologies created by google . which really have changed our lives .

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raheemm
The cynical side of me imagines all these people are joining FB for its
inevitable blockbuster IPO. But then another part of me wonders if FB is
coming out with something completely revolutionary. Something so amazing that
all these smart folks cant wait to work on it.

~~~
staktrace
I think FB _is_ coming out with something revolutionary. However, neither they
nor anybody else know what it is yet. It will only be apparent after it has
been released. That's why people are joining FB; they all want to help
_discover_ the new revolutionary idea.

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joshu
I've done this myself: "I've got a job description of 'come hang out with us
for a while and we'll see what happens'"

It didn't really out. Best of luck to him.

~~~
joshu
I meant "work out"

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barmstrong
Surprised to hear him say he thought Wave just needed more time and Google
wasn't patient enough.

Wave was brilliant, but Google definitely made the right decision there.

~~~
derefr
I think Wave needed more time _in stealth_ , before the big announcement, beta
client, invite-only service, etc. Wave _should_ have gone to different
companies (like Facebook) and made itself their new platform, such that, all
at once, Google could flip a switch one day and you'd realize that all your
activity on Facebook, MSN, Exchange, YouTube, etc, was all really going on in
Wavelets all along.

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micah63
Email had a metaphor, your mailbox.

Wave has no metaphor, it is complete non-sense to my mother. Neat idea,
totally useless in reality. What worked (real-time collaboration) should be
(has been?) ported to gmail and google docs, period.

I love Google products and I didn't shed any tears when they shut down wave...

~~~
staktrace
Every new idea has to start somewhere. What is complete nonsense to your
mother makes perfect sense to the next generation. Eventually somebody will
re-invent Wave when the time is right, and then it will _be_ the metaphor for
future products.

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pama
I found it interesting to hear that the size of the company (2.5K employees)
would feel very different to that of google (25K employees). Does this size
difference simply mean that google has one extra layer of management (many
centers) compared to facebook, or is there some other difference? The author
speculates about the compensation, including stock options, but is there
anything else?

~~~
staktrace
I don't think there is much intrisincally different between Facebook and
Google. That is, when Google had only 2.5K employees it was attracting people
like Lars from other companies like MS and Yahoo, and for the same reasons.
The problem is scale. It's much easier to find 2.5K smart people than it is to
find 25K smart people, and so when you're at 25K the average intelligence of
your population is much lower. I don't think it's so much the extra management
than the reduced signal-to-noise ratio that Lars is referring to. If you've
worked at companies of different sizes (I have) the difference is tangible.

~~~
idoh
In your opinion, is there anything a company can do to keep or improve the
average level of employees as the company grows, or is it just inevitable?

~~~
staktrace
Interesting question. I think it's possible to maintain and even improve the
average level of intelligence of employees, but past a certain size it's so
ridiculously difficult as to be infeasible, practically speaking. Also, I'm
not convinced that it's in the company's best interests, but I guess that
depends on what the goal of the company is. If, like most companies, it is to
make money, then having too many smart people could be a liability; after a
certain point you want to hire people for reliability and teamwork rather than
individual intelligence. Even if the company has some other goal, I would say
it's probably easier to try to keep the company small and automate as much
work as possible than it is to keep hiring really smart people.

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digitailor
My take on it is this:

As someone else noted thoughtfully in this thread, Norvig once said "Go where
the data is." [extreme paraphrase]

Google's data isn't largely proprietary. The web is accessible for any to
crawl. Google Maps is based on essentially public data, or easily obtained
data. A savvy and well funded enough competitor could enter these markets.

Facebook's data is proprietary and user-created. The users have built-in
inertia for Facebook 'cause they sure as hell don't want to abandon the three
years of content they've built on a whim.

Add to that Google's recent missteps like net neutrality, and their insane and
technocratic hiring policies, and I don't think I know a single truly bright
person who would want to go to Google right now.

Facebook, however, is looking pretty damn sexy... all that data that the users
forked over... hmmm... Not to mention the fact that if you're a social person,
Facebook is FUN.

~~~
richardw
Interesting point, but Google has much, much more of _my_ data than Facebook
has. FB has a few likes of mine and around 200 friends, with a relatively
small number of messages. Google has my multi-year mail history (content plus
a pretty big social graph that means far more than a few old school friends),
my searches (and therefore interests), what adverts I've clicked on, which
pages get the most traffic on my websites. It has documents I've worked on
with friends and associates. It has my calendar. I've got a bunch of sites
sitting on Google servers. When I use my iPhone, Google provides the maps and
knows where I'm going.

~~~
digitailor
This is a really good point, and highlights a major difference between
information derived from users based on them asking for services and explicit
data users have "declared". The derived information may actually be more
valuable, as you say, but because the declared data is more direct and
voluntary, it has higher PERCEIVED value (at least it did to me). This may be
one of the reasons FB is more attractive then Google right now- and perception
is everything when it comes to valuation. Great post, thanks.

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udzinari
Facebook really changed the world, as far as new advertising platforms go.. as
for communication, it is funny how many of us continue to use IRC just as
effectively as 15 or so years ago.

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amichail
"I've got a job description of 'come hang out with us for a while and we'll
see what happens', which is a pretty exciting thing."

He took a job without having any idea what he will be doing? And why would
that be an exciting thing?

~~~
bradendouglass
It's also well known that many Googlers love their 20% personal (pet) project
time and this job description sounds like it took that 20% and juiced it to
100%.

~~~
bradendouglass
True. However, you did ask specifically why this would be an exciting job
title. This is my interpretation on why this job title is actually "kick ass."

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NZ_Matt
This is a great move for Lars. Look for him to integrate his Wave vision with
FB chat. Wave wasn't bad it just never came close to critical mass and with
Facebook he gets that instantly.

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pedanticfreak
One could say Wave failed because of a lack of users. Especially users
meaningfully connected to each other. Really it doesn't matter if the software
is shit. Millions of people flock to crappy PHP forums all over the world.
Facebook has those users with reasons to talk to each other.

Whether that makes Facebook more important than Google I don't think is what's
really going on here.

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jfb
r.e. Wave, visionary != incomprehensible.

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michaelhart
Apparently, Lars Rasmussen is NOT a pirate. he isn't even in the club.
<http://tcrn.ch/acPtMa>

