> On the other, both Chris and I left Google to found startups, and neither the Socratic team nor Google as a whole have yet produced an AI powered tutor worthy of Google's capabilities. But a few Socratic Googlers might yet make it happen, unless they've been re-org'd
Feels a bit like the post is upbeat padding to share the real experience/criticism which is this part (ie exactly what you expect for a small focused app getting acquired by a giant directionless company)
Right. If Google had taken SWE/SREs, say, and had them rewrite Socratic to fit Google infra while it had allowed Socratic engineers to think about incremental product enhancements that leveraged Google’s capabilities (as opposed to putting them full time on the rewrite), a far more optimal outcome that probably wouldn’t have led to them leaving.
One takeaway is that if you get acquired by Google, you should try to advocate for such an arrangement. Having worked for a firm that was acquired, it was incredible and devastating imo how much talent was squandered by these endless rewrites. Each IC’s decision to do that, to be fair — the money or something else wins for them. But just a bummer to see.
Feels a bit like the post is upbeat padding to share the real experience/criticism which is this part (ie exactly what you expect for a small focused app getting acquired by a giant directionless company)