For the past few years, one of the highest compliments you could pay Google was to say it wasnt making the same mistakes as Facebook. The two companies are similar in many ways: For instance, both make most of their money by monetizing their users data, a business model with fundamental privacy issues.
Though not an annis horribilis by any means, it was pockmarked with a higher-than-typical quantity of public embarrassments, many of which involved the company failing to live up to its own view of itself as a paragon of idealism and transparency.
The reorg let Page devote his attention to risky, unprofitable moonshots in areas such as healthcare and transportation while Sundar Pichai, the trusted associate who became CEO of Google, ran the parts of the company that were already gigantically popular cash cows, such as Google Search, YouTube, and their associated ad platforms.
Since the split, Page and cofounder Sergey Brin have seemingly opted out of the drudgery of running a major public company, while Alphabets moonshots have yet to turn into self-sustaining businesses. In fact, the most consumer-ready new Alphabet business, its Nest smart-home arm, ended up being folded back into Google.
The company says that the ethics boards abrupt termination doesnt mean that its lost interest in having outsiders play a part in guiding its use of AI.Original article