CZM Rewind: The Man That Destroyed Google Search
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Cousin media, hi, bet off line fans, it's me. Host, that's IT. Now here in amErica it's thanksgiving. So we're all given the week of Robert.

Sophie ve told me i'm not allowed the podcast and if they find out they're going to once again put me in the carnival prison. And once again I was sent local court jay pack of a gun by robot, unclear what IT means. Nevertheless, this is one of my favorite episodes i've ever recorded.

It's about a real shit head who destroyed the product. I love, you love, and we both are doomed to use every day. Now, if you're not in america, and this is a big problem, I don't know what to tell you.

The podcast doesn't cost you any money unless, of course, you pay five dollars a month for our coolest or media, in which case, I apologize deeply. I will be sleeping not at all this week pennants. What i've done to you for the rest of in america, no pennants necessary.

Please enjoy this episode. Hello and welcome to Better off line. I'm your host that sitra.

And in the next two episodes i'm gona .

tell you the names of some of the people responsible for destroying the internet and i'm gna start on february fifth twenty twenty when bengola es googles former head of surge but I had a problem judicia than the V P N G M of as a google and shift and cultural. Then the VP of engineering search and ads on goal properties had called something called a code yellow for search revenue due to, and I quote, emails that came out as part of google entire trust hearing.

Steady weakness in the daily numbers and unlikely ss, that IT would end the quarter significantly behind in metrics that kind of unclear for those unfamiliar with google internal kind of scientology s jargon, which means most people, let me explain, code yellow isn't a terrible need to pitch or some sort of crisis of moderate severity. The yellow, according to Stephen levy's tell book about google, refers to. And I promise this is not a joke.

The color of a tank top that a former V P of engineering called waye rosling used to wear during his time at the company. It's essentially the equivalent of a death comm one and activates, as levy explained, a war room like situation where workers are pulled from their desks and into a conference room where they tackle the problem as a top priority. Any other projects or concerns, a sideline and independently, i've heard there are other colors like purple.

I'm not going to get into that though. It's quite boring and irrelevant to this situation. In emails released this part, the department of justice anti trust case against google, as a previously mentioned, visually laid out several contributing factors.

Search query growth was significantly behind forecast. The timing of revenue launches was significantly behind. And he had this vae worry that several advertising specific and sector witnesses existed in. Now I want to cover a something because i've mess up. And i've really want to be clear about this.

I've previously, and irony ously referred to the code elo, something that gomes raised as a means of calling attention to the proximal ity of google outside, getting a little too close the search. I'm afraid the truth is extremely depressing and so much grimmer. The code yellow was actually the rumble of the god amr economy, with google revenue warm sounding.

The alarm that its golden goose wasn't playing enough eggs goes. A google of nineteen years that basically built the foundation of modern search engines should go down as one of the few people in tech that actually fought for an actual principle. And he was destroyed by a guy called provoker region, an a computer scientist, class strata that decided, with the management consults, he sacked.

More confusingly, one of their problems was that there was insufficient growth inquiry, as in the amount of things that people are asking google, it's a bit like if ford decided that things were going poorly because their drivers weren't putting enough god there miles on their trucks. This whole story has personally upset me, and I think you're gonna hear that in this, but going through these emails is just very depressing. Anyway, a few days beforehand, on february first, two and one thousand Christian girl, then google's repeat business finance officer, had emailed shi zr, then google s rep of engineering surge discover, saying that the ad team had been considering a cojero to close the surge gap IT was seeing vegal referring to how critical that growth was to an unnamed company plan.

To be clear, this email was in response to the us. Stating that there is nothing that the search team could do to Operate at the fidelity of growth that the ad department had demanded trashy forward to the email tonnes asking if there's any way to discuss this with sundara shi, google C E, O, and declared that there was no way he would sign up for a high fidelity business metric for daily active users on search. Sakr also said something that i've been thinking about constantly, and I read these emails that there was a good reason that google founders separate its search from ads.

I want you to remember that line for later. A day later, on february second and twenty nineteen, saker and goes share their anxieties with nick fox, a vice president of searching google assistance, entering a multiple daylong debate about google sudden last for growth. This thread is a dark window into the world of growth focus tech, where the cur listed the multiple points of this connection between ads and search, discussing how the search team wasn't able to finally optimize engagement on google without hacking IT, a term that means effectively tricking users into spending more time on a site.

And that doing so would lead them to, and I quote, abandoned work on efficient journeys. In one email, fox answered, there was a pretty big disco nec between what finance and ads wants and what search was doing. Every part of the story pisses me off so much.

When gomes pushed back on the multiple request for growth, fox added that all three of them were responsible for search. And that search was, and again, I quote, the revenue engine of the company and the bottoming with the adm finance teams was now potentially the new reality of their jobs. On february six, twenty nineteen, done said that he believed that search was getting too close to the money and ended his email by saying he was concerned growth is all that google was thinking about.

A much twenty second twenty nineteen google V P of product management dartin contact would declare the end of the code yellow. The thread mostly consisted of congratulation or emails until gomes made the mistake of responding. Congratulate late everyone saying that the plane's architecture as part of the code yellow would do well throughout the year.

Ter proboque regather, an then google's head of ads, and the true mastermind behind the code yellow, who would respond curtly, saying that the current revenue targets were addressed by heroic opp m engineering and that the core query softness continued without mitigation, a very clunk y way of saying that despite these changes, query growth was not happening at the red needed IT to a day later, gomes emailed fox and occur at email. He intended the center red of them, he said, by saying he was annoyed. But personally, and on behalf of the search team in this very long email, he explained in hargus detail how one might increase engagement with google search, but specifically added that they could increase queries quite easily in the short term, but only in use.

The negative ways like turning off, spell correction or ranking improvements, replacing refinements, effectively labels all over the page, adding that IT was possible, that there are trade off here between the different kinds of using negativity caused by engagement hacking, and that he was deeply, deeply uncomfortable with this. He also added that this was the reason he didn't believe that queries, as in the amount of the things with people searching on google, are a good metric to measure search, and that the best defense against the weaknesses of queries was to create compelling user experiences that make users want to come back. Crazy idea, are there? What if the product was good? Not enough for proboque.

So little bit of history about google here. They regularly, throughout the year, do core updates to search. These are updates that changed the algorithm that say, okay, we're onna suppress this kind of thing.

We can elevate this kind of thing. And they are actually the reason that search changes is why certain sites sunlight disappear or reappear. It's why sites get a ton of traffic and don't get any and so and so forth.

But they do a lot of them. The one that's really interesting and a little basket. And I went and look through very much the last decade of these. The one that stood out to me was the much twenty twenty core update to search, which happened about a week before the end of the code yellow, meaning that it's very likely that this was a result of probationers bullshit. So this was expected to be one of the largest updates to search in a very long time and quoting search engine journal there.

Yet when he launched, many found that the update mostly rolled back changes and traffic was increasing to sites that have been suppressed by previous updates like google searches, penguin update from twenty twelve that specifically targeted by my search results. There were others that were seeing traffic as well from an update that happened on the first of August twenty eighteen. I was a few months after gomes became head of search.

While i'm guessing here, I really don't know. I do not work for google. I do not have friends there. I think the timing of the march twenty nineteen corrupted, along with the traffic increases the previously suppress sites that one hundred percent was spammy S E O. nonsense. I think this suggests that google's response to the code ela was to roll back changes that were made to maintain the quality of search. A few months later, in main twenty nineteen, google would roll out a redesign of how ads were shown on google search, specifically on mobile, replacing the bright Green ad label and URL color on ads with a tiny, little bolted black note.

That said, ad in the smallest fund you could possibly put there with the link looking otherwise identical to a regular search link, I guess that's how they managed to start hinting their numbers, huh? And then in january y twenty, twenty, google would bring this change to desktop, and the virgins jum porter would suggest that IT made google ads look just like search results. Now, awesome.

Five months later, a little over a year after the code yellow situation, google would make proper ka regardant, the head of google search, with Jerry disher taking his place as the head of ads. After nearly twenty years of building google search, gomes will be relegated to the S V P of education of google stones that was a critical par of the original team that made google search work, who has been credited with establishing the culture of the world's largest, the most important search engine, was chased out by a growth hungry managerial type. Several of them actually LED by proper recovery N A management consulting, wearing an engineer costume.

As a side note, by the way, I used the term managed group consulting. There is a prejan ative, while he exhibits all the same being counting morally Young guided behaviors of a management consulting, from what I can tell, recovered has never actually worked in that particular sector of the economy. But you know who has sound up a shy, the C.

E O of google, who previously worked at mckinsey, gub ly, the most morally apparent company that ever existed, having played roles both in the two thousand eight financial crisis, where I encourage banks to load up on that and flawed mortgage back securities, and the ongoing opioid crisis were effectively advised perdue farmer on how to growth, hacks sales of xi content and extremely addictive pain killer, we can see is paid nearly one billion dollars over several settings due to its work with the but i'm get inside track. But one last point, machinery is actively anti labor. When a company brings in a machinery consultation, they're often there to advise on how to cut cost, which inevitably means layoff s and outsourcing. The kinsey is to the middle class. What fleshy in bacteria is the a skin?

This is an a tiny secret with you hear, because of our job, we need to be connected, tony over connects by more than us. But it's important like connection with your friends, your family. Every tions enriches es your life, and that gives you something that provides. And high speed internet, just in the context of this show, is so important, we will be talking about something here.

And it's easy to forget when you have IT you big parts of the country still don't have high speed internet.

So A T N T knows this. They're aware of IT at A T T, and they're making a huge effort to change that. What they're doing is on try to cover thirty million plus locations currently who don't have IT to get IT with fiber by the end of twenty twenty five.

Millions of people obviously will benefit families, businesses, schools, hospitals. There is a place called old and county in kentucky, where they're now providing high speed internet to more than twenty thousand customers. A T N T join a lot of great things .

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But back to the emails, which are a stark example of the monstrous, disgusting rot economy, the growth that all costs mindset that's dominating the techy co system. And if you take one thing away from this episode, I want you to be the name proper car regather an and understanding that there are people responsible for the current state of the internet, these emails, which I really encourage you to look up.

If you go to wear your ed dog at, you'll be able to see a news. Let that has links to them. Well, these emails tell a dramatic story about how google financing advertising teams LED by regardant, with the blessing of CEO sundar shi, the mckinsey guy, actively work to make google worse, to make the company more money.

This is exactly what I mean when I talk about the art economy, any logical, product destroying mindset that turns products you love into torturous, frustrated in coz I tools that require you to fight the company to get the thing you want. Ben gomes was instrumental in making search work both as a product and a business. He joined the company in one thousand nine hundred thousand and nine, a time long before google established dominance in the field, and the same year when Larry page and sergey brin tried to sell the company to excite for one million dollars, only to walk away after venner costlier and excite investor cofounder, some microsystems.

That's now A V C. Who tried to stop people going to a beach and half moon bay. Well, he tried to low bAllen with the seven hundred and fifty thousand dollar offer, also known as a one hundred square for apartment in send from cisco.

In an interview with fast companies, Harry mccay him from twenty eighteen, don't afraid google's chAllenge as taking the pay rank algorithm one machine to a whole bunch of machines, and they weren't very good machines at the time despite his impact in tenure goes that only been made head of surge in the middle of twenty eighteen after john gandara moved to apple to work on its machine learning in A R strategy done have been described as google search. Sar love IT for his ability to communicate across google. Many quite decentralize departments.

Every single article i've read about gomes and his tenure and google spoke of a man deeply engrained in the foundation of one of the most important technologies ever made, a man who had dedicated decades the maintaining a product with her, and I quote, goes here guiding light of serving the user and using technology to do that. And I am finally given the keys to the kingdom, the ability to elevate google search even further. He was rap fog by a series of rotten careers, a police wall street LED by procter regather, an do you want to know what boca, a regio anz's old job was? What proper ka regather.

An, the new head of google search, the guy that ran goole search, that runs google search right now, that is running a google search into the god ground. Do you wants to know what his job was? His job before google, he was the head of search for god dam yao from two thousand and five through two thousand and twelve when he joined the company.

When proper car reg van took over a yahoo search, they held a thirty point four percent market share, not far from google zone, thirty six point nine percent and miles ahead of the fifteen point seven percent that microsoft s emerson eec. ch. had.

By may twenty twelve, yahoo was down to just thirty point four percent and had drunk for the previous nine consecutive months and was being beaten by even the newly released being that same year. Yahoo had the largest laus in its corporate history, shutting two thousand employees, or forty percent of its overall workforce. The man who deposed ben gomes, someone who worked on google search from its very beginnings, was so shit to his job there.

In two thousand and nine, yahoo effectively thrown the town on its own search tech, instead choosing to license beings engine in a ten year deal. If we take a long view of things, this likely precipitate at the overall decline of the company, which went from being worth one hundred and twenty five billion dollars at the peak of the dot combo to being sold to verizon for four point eight billion dollars in twenty seventeen, which is a roughly a three thousand square apartment in sanford. Cisco, with search no longer a priority in making less money for the company, yahoo decided to be IT into web two point o in original content, making some beats that paid off, but far, far too many that did not.

IT spent one point one billion dollars on tumblr in twenty thirteen, only fever issing to sell IT for just three million dollars in twenty nine. IT puts member in two thousand and seven extensively to complete with the new google ABS productivity suite, only to sell IT for a reported fraction of the original purchase Price to vm were a few years later. That's not his for but nevertheless, yahoo was a company without a mission of purpose or an adjective.

Nobody, and i'll speculate, even the most leading the company really knew what I was, what I did. Anyway, just a big show out right now to caris swisher, who referred to proper ka as well respected when he moved from yahoo to google. You absolutely nailed a cara bang up job. In an interview with idan at stanford a from two thousand and five, regardant spoke of his intent to align the commercial incentives of a billion content providers with social good intent while at yahoo and his eagerness to inspire the audience to give more data. What anyway before that it's it's actually hard to find out exactly what recover an did the according to C, D, net, he spent fourteen years doing search and data mining research IBM.

In April twenty eleven, the gold an ran an interview with region an that called him yahoo o's secret weapon, describing his plan to make rigorous scientific research and practice to inform yahoo business from email to advertising and how under then CEO Carol arts, the focus has shifted to the direct development of new products. IT speaks of recommences scientific approach and his steady process based logic to innovation that is very different to the common perception. The ideas and development are more about luck and sponsor a sentence that i'm only reading to you because I really need you to hear how stupid sounds and how species some of the take press used to be friendly.

This entire article is ridiculous, so utterly vacuous and really astonished. I don't. Anna named the reporter. I feel bad.

What about regardant? Korea made this feel right? How was nobody connected these thoughts before I have a day job? I run A P.

R, I am a blog with a podcast and and i'm the one who said, yeah, okay, jaculation is now the c of the blood bank. Nobody saw this. Nobody saw this at time.

I just feel a bit crazy. I feel a bit crazy. But to be clear, this was something written several years after yahoo had a license that search technology to microsoft in a financial deal. The the next CEO mariama who replay bars was still angry about for years.

Recovered rain is what zd net referred to as the search master, was one so successful, but IT ended up being replaced by a search engine that not a single person in the world enjoy saying out loud the guardian article, an exactly one year before dramatic layoffs, yahoo, that involved firing entire divisions worth the people. And four months before Carol bots would be fired by telephone by then chairman roy bostock, her replacement, Scott thomson, who previously served as president of paper, would last a whole five months in a row before he was replaced by former google executive in asia. In part because he emerged, he lied on his resume about having a computer science degree, a proper card. Did you not know this? anyway? whatever.

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Bots joined yahoo in two thousand and nine, so about four years into proper cast brain of terror, I guess. And SHE joined in the aftermath of its previous CEO, Jerry Young refusing to sell the company to microsoft for forty five billion dollars in the first year.

He laid off hundreds of people and struck a deal that i've mentioned before to power yahoo 的 search using microsoft being searched in tech with microsoft ying yahoo， eighty eight percent of the revenue IT game from searches, a deal that made the yahoo a couple hundred million dollars for handing over the keys in the take to its most high traffic platform. As I previously stated, when roba ca rag van yahoo secret weapon was doing his work, yahoo search was so valuable that IT was replaced by being it's sol value. In fact, I mean, maybe i'm being a little unfair.

There's a way of looking at you could say that yahoo entire value at the end of his career was driven by nostalgia in association with days before he work there. Anyway, thanks to the state of modern search is actually very, very difficult. Find much about recognise history. IT took me hours of digging through google, and one point being embarrassingly to find three or four articles that went into any depth about him.

But from what i've clean, his expertise lies primarily and fAiling upwards, ascending through the ranks of technology on the momentum from the explosions he's caused in a wide interview from twenty two thousand and one glad hand of Stephen levy said regarding an isn't see of google, he just runs the place and described his addition to the company as a move from research to management while levy caused him a world class computer scientist, s who is author definitive text in the field, which is true. He also describes a recoverable as choosing a management track, which definitely tracks with everything I found out about him. Reg van proudly declares that google's third party antec plays a critical role in keeping journals m alive in a really shit answer to a question that was also made at a time when he was in aggressively incentivising search engine and optimize content.

And a year after he deposed someone who actually gave a shit about search under relevant, 如 gals become less reliable and is dominated by search engine optimization and just outright spam。 And I said this before, but we complain about the state of twitter under elon musk and justified. He's a vile anti mi racist.

Bigger, we all know this is fully true. We can say a million times. However, i'd argue that recover an by extension and opposit deserve one hundred times more criticism. They've done unfathomable damage the society. You really can't fix the damage they've been doing and the damage we've continue to do, especially as we go into an election.

Rag van and his cronies worked to outspend gomes, a man who dedicated the good portion of his life to make the world's information were accessible, in the process burning the library of alex andria to the god damn ground so that sundara shi could make more than two hundred million dollars a year. And regarding an a manager, high bystander, pixi, a former, but kinsey man, the king of managers, is an example of everything wrong with the tech industry, despite his history, is a true computer scientist with actual academic credentials. Ragab an chose to bulldoze tube workers, people who did things and people that care about technology, and replaced with horrifying toties that would make google more profitable and less useful.

Since proper car took the reins of google in twenty twenty, google search is dramatically declined with these core search updates I mentioned allegedly made to improve the quality of results, having the adverse effect increasing the prevalence of spammy city search optimized content. It's frustrating the hanger you've hear in my voice, the emotion is because i've read all of these anti trust emails. I have gone through this guy's history, and i've read all the things about bengal's to every article about bang goes, where they in interviewed.

Is this guy just having these dreamy thoughts about the future of information and the complexity of delivering in at high speed, every interview with regimens, some vague bullshit about how important data is it's so got dam offensive to me. And all of this stuff happening is just one example of what I think are probably hundreds of things happening across startups or that have happened across start of the last ten or fifteen years and big tech to. And it's because the people running the tech industry are no longer those who built him.

Larry patient, sergey brin left google in december twenty nineteen. The same year, by the way, is the co yellow thing. And while they remained as controlling shareholders, they clearly don't give a shit about what google means anymore. Proper car regardant is a manager, and his career, from what I can tell, is mostly made up of, did some stuffer IBM fail to make yahoo anything of no, and fucked up google so badly that every news outlet has run a story about how bad IT is this.

This is the result of taking technology out of the hands of real builders and handing IT to managers at a time when management is anonymous, with staying as far away from actual workers possible, when you are do nothing, looking to profit as much as possible, who doesn't use tech, who doesn't care about tech and you only care about growth, well, you're not a user. You're a parasite. And it's these parasites of dominated and are now draining the tech industry of its value.

They're driving in into a god damn ditch. Recommended story is unique in so far as the damages managed to inflict, or if were being exceptionally charitable, failed to avoid, in the case of yahoo on two industry defining companies. And the fact that he did IT without being A C E O of founder is remarkable.

Yet he's far from the only example of a manager of falling upwards. I want to editorial ized a bit here. I want you to think about your job history. I wanted to think about the managers you've had.

I've written a lot about management and specifically to do with remote work and the whole thing around guys who don't do work, who are barely in the office, telling you you need to be in the office. This problem is everywhere. Managers are everywhere, and managers aren't doing work.

I'm sure someone will email me now and say, my manager, enough. I do. You work all the time.

yeah. Make sure you do. That's why you're emAiling me, telling me how good you are, your job. People who actually do work don't feel defensive about IT people who do things that are part of the actual profit center. They don't need a podcast to tell them their good at their job.

What I think the problem is in modern american corporate society is that management is no longer synonymous with actually managing people. It's not about getting the people what they need. It's not about organizing things and making things efficient and good.

It's not about execution. It's about handing work off to other people in getting paid handsomely. And if you disagree, easy at Better off line outcome.

I will read your email, may be all even respond. But the thing is, management has become a poison in america. Managers have become poisonous because managers are not actually held to any kind of standard.

No, only the workers who do the work are. What happened to bang goes is one of the most disgusting, disGraceful things to happen in the tech industry. It's an absolute joke.

Ben goes was a god damn hero. And I really need you to read the newsletter and read these emails. I need you to see how many times him and saka great guy as well was saying, hey, growth is bad for search.

The thing that ben gomes was being asked to do was increased queries on google. The literal amount of people search, there are many ways of looking at that and thinking, oh, shit, that's not what you want. Surely you don't want no query.

You don't want people not using IT at all. But queries going upwards lineally suggest that if you not magic to use the growth, at least the people are not getting what they want on the first try, which, by the way, kind of feels like how google is. Note ays, when you go to google and the first result in the second result, the fifth result, the tenth result, just don't get what you need, because it's all S E O crap.

Now, this is all theorizing. But what I think provjan regardant did, I think he took off all the fucking guidelines on google search. I think he rolled back changes specifically to make search worse, to increase queries, to give google more chance to show you adverts.

I am guessing don't have a source telling me this, but the pattern around the core surge updates, the fact the google search started getting worse toward the middle and end of two and ninety and unquestionable dipped in two thousand twenty, well as when proper car took over, as when the big man took the rains. That's when track killer got his job at the blood bank. And this is the thing.

There is very little that you and I can actually do about this, but what we can do is, say, names like propaganda gavan a great deal of times, so that people like this can be known so that the actions of the scarlet st. Arseholes can be seen and heard and pointed out and spat upon. I'm not suggesting spitting on anyone.

No violent acts now can be pissed on the internet like the rest of us. Now i'm ranting. I realize i'm ranting, but this subject really, really got to me.

But it's not the only one in the next episode i'm a of conclude this sorted three part fisco with a few more examples and how many of these managers, these encounters the void of imagination or ability or anything of note, safe for that uh, slug liability to protect oneself. I want to talk about how these people managed to obfuscate their true intentions by pretending to be engineers, by pretending to be technologies and pretending to be innovators. I want to tell you all about how at a misery destroyed instagram. And I wanna tell you how little sam ultima has achieved, other than making him and his friend's rich. See next time.

Thank you for listening to battle offline. The editor and composer of the battle line theme song is matter sales cape. You can check out more of his music and audio projects, a meta sales t dot com M A T T O S O W S K I dot com.

You can email me at easy at Better off line 点 com or check out Better off line dot com to form a newsletter and more links to this podcast。 Thank you so much for this thing. Better off line is a production of cool zone media. For more from cool zone media, visit our website cools on media dot com or check us out on the I had radio up apple podcast or whatever you get your podcast.

Hey, boy, can you believe we .

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