Ed Zitron

This is exactly what I mean when I talk about the economy, an illogical product-destroying mindset that turns products you love into torturous, frustrating quasi-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 1999, 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 $1 million, only to walk away after Vinod Khosla, an Excite investor and co-founder of Sun Microsystems that's now...

He joined the company in 1999, 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 $1 million, only to walk away after Vinod Khosla, an Excite investor and co-founder of Sun Microsystems that's now...

He joined the company in 1999, 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 $1 million, only to walk away after Vinod Khosla, an Excite investor and co-founder of Sun Microsystems that's now...

a VC who tried to stop people going to a beach in Half Moon Bay, well, he tried to lowball them with a $750,000 offer, also known as a 100-square-foot apartment in San Francisco. In an interview with Fast Company's Harry McCracken from 2018, Gomes frayed Google's challenge as taking the PageRank algorithm from one machine to a whole bunch of machines.

a VC who tried to stop people going to a beach in Half Moon Bay, well, he tried to lowball them with a $750,000 offer, also known as a 100-square-foot apartment in San Francisco. In an interview with Fast Company's Harry McCracken from 2018, Gomes frayed Google's challenge as taking the PageRank algorithm from one machine to a whole bunch of machines.

a VC who tried to stop people going to a beach in Half Moon Bay, well, he tried to lowball them with a $750,000 offer, also known as a 100-square-foot apartment in San Francisco. In an interview with Fast Company's Harry McCracken from 2018, Gomes frayed Google's challenge as taking the PageRank algorithm from one machine to a whole bunch of machines.

And they weren't very good machines at the time. Despite his impact and tenure, Gomes had only been made head of search in the middle of 2018, after John Ghiondouria moved to Apple to work on its machine learning and AI strategy. Gomes had been described as Google's search czar, beloved for his ability to communicate across Google's many quite decentralized departments.

And they weren't very good machines at the time. Despite his impact and tenure, Gomes had only been made head of search in the middle of 2018, after John Ghiondouria moved to Apple to work on its machine learning and AI strategy. Gomes had been described as Google's search czar, beloved for his ability to communicate across Google's many quite decentralized departments.

And they weren't very good machines at the time. Despite his impact and tenure, Gomes had only been made head of search in the middle of 2018, after John Ghiondouria moved to Apple to work on its machine learning and AI strategy. Gomes had been described as Google's search czar, beloved for his ability to communicate across Google's many quite decentralized departments.

Every single article I've read about Gomes and his tenure at Google spoke of a man deeply ingrained in the foundation of one of the most important technologies ever made. A man who had dedicated decades to maintaining a product with a, and I quote Gomes here, guiding light of serving the user. and using technology to do that.

Every single article I've read about Gomes and his tenure at Google spoke of a man deeply ingrained in the foundation of one of the most important technologies ever made. A man who had dedicated decades to maintaining a product with a, and I quote Gomes here, guiding light of serving the user. and using technology to do that.

Every single article I've read about Gomes and his tenure at Google spoke of a man deeply ingrained in the foundation of one of the most important technologies ever made. A man who had dedicated decades to maintaining a product with a, and I quote Gomes here, guiding light of serving the user. and using technology to do that.

And when finally given the keys to the kingdom, the ability to elevate Google search even further, he was rat-fucked by a series of rotten careerists trying to please Wall Street, led by Prabhakar Raghavan. Do you want to know what Prabhakar Raghavan's old job was?

And when finally given the keys to the kingdom, the ability to elevate Google search even further, he was rat-fucked by a series of rotten careerists trying to please Wall Street, led by Prabhakar Raghavan. Do you want to know what Prabhakar Raghavan's old job was?

And when finally given the keys to the kingdom, the ability to elevate Google search even further, he was rat-fucked by a series of rotten careerists trying to please Wall Street, led by Prabhakar Raghavan. Do you want to know what Prabhakar Raghavan's old job was?

What Prabhakar Raghavan, the new head of Google Search, the guy that ran Google Search, that runs Google Search right now, that is running Google Search into the goddamn ground. Do you want to know what his job was? His job before Google? He was the head of search for goddamn Yahoo from 2005 through 2012.

What Prabhakar Raghavan, the new head of Google Search, the guy that ran Google Search, that runs Google Search right now, that is running Google Search into the goddamn ground. Do you want to know what his job was? His job before Google? He was the head of search for goddamn Yahoo from 2005 through 2012.

What Prabhakar Raghavan, the new head of Google Search, the guy that ran Google Search, that runs Google Search right now, that is running Google Search into the goddamn ground. Do you want to know what his job was? His job before Google? He was the head of search for goddamn Yahoo from 2005 through 2012.

When he joined the company, when Prabhakar Raghavan took over Yahoo Search, they held a 30.4% market share, not far from Google's own 36.9%, and miles ahead of the 15.7% that Microsoft's MSN Search had. By May 2012, Yahoo was down to just 13.4% and had shrunk for the previous nine consecutive months, and was being beaten by even the newly released Bing.