Hacker News Reader

Comment by joebadmo | Hacker News Reader

You point to recent Google failures, but isn't their culture of allowing (even high profile) failures not only to get implemented, but then to get shut down part of why Google's successful? Which (the culture of allowing failure) seems like an engineering approach, and not a managerial (which to me has always struck me as fear-of-failure/CYA) one.

View on HN

That's exactly his point. Both Facebook and Google have secured market domination to a level where their culture, be it engineering or managerial, doesn't really matter.

The question is whether those flops should have ever happened. I admire Google that they will kill unsuccessful products, but I question how well they understand the market when they have so many products to kill.

Seriously? What company doesn't have major failures? Not ones doing anything interesting.

Should we have never had the Space Shuttle program because a couple of them crashed?

Lots of failures is "working as intended". The only way to understand the market is to try out lots of things and see how the market reacts. Remember, the point of innovation is to solve unmet consumer needs - if people understood them, they wouldn't be unmet.

I think that is one way, but not the only way. Apple is able to release products that are generally well received by the market. In fact Apple understands the market for their individual products extremely well, even if the product isn't released yet. Google's approach seems to be more of a shotgun/spaghetti see if something sticks, without actually stopping to think things through first.

Isn't Apple targeting more of a niche than the general market, though? They service that niche very well, but it's easier to understand a niche than it is to understand the entire body of consumers.

The spaghetti cannon strategy. Microsoft do this too.

Apple does not follow the spaghetti cannon strategy. However the risks of manufacturing a device that doesn't sell is higher than launching a website that nobody uses. It makes sense for Apple to take their time. As a side-effect they've accumulated a huge stockpile of cash.

I still think it's worthwhile to distinguish between failure of execution and failure due to factors beyond your control. Buzz and Wave certainly had market challenges but they were seriously hampered by some poor decisions.

most companies fail, even the ones run by those who "understand the market" (if that phrase has any meaning outside of speaking completely in hindsight).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com