Is Amazon a bigger innovator than Google?

Jun 24, 2020 39 Comments

Reading an old (2018) post by Steve Yegge, and seeing the growth Amazon keeps experiencing over the years, up to its skyrocketed stock price it has acquired after Covid, I think it really has become the winner among the big techs.

Here's the post: https://medium.com/@steve.yegge/google-doesnt-necessarily-need-innovation-95cea96d0eeb nothing special by itself

It seems like Google is the best at making devs life comfortable, with great tooling, wlb and infra, but fails short of innovation compared to Amazon (and other companies).

I think that at this point it's crazy that Google still has such a great reputation, as you can see for example by its dominance on Blind polls...

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TOP 39 Comments
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  • Amazon
    โ›น๏ธโ€โ™€๏ธ

    Go to company page Amazon

    โ›น๏ธโ€โ™€๏ธ
    The last AWS principal engineer I know of who went to google came back in less than 4 months... so I guess free lunches arenโ€™t everything.
    Jun 24, 2020 1
  • Apple
    ZipRecruit

    Go to company page Apple

    ZipRecruit
    Bezos has done a good job of selling the leadership principles kool-aid. Its always about the customer (so sucks for employees :)).
    Jun 24, 2020 0
  • Amazon
    Tandem

    Go to company page Amazon

    Tandem
    Amazon is absolutely more innovative than Google right now. But it's not a good company to work for - that's why people on Blind tend to favor Google in polls and discussions.

    With that said, there are plenty of opportunities for Google to innovate more, and surpass Amazon. Online grocery shopping and free 1 day shipping will be major drivers of growth for Amazon, but they're innovative only in the sense that they give consumers better options, not in the sense that they're creative new ideas.

    So Google can far surpass Amazon if they're capable of delivering results. Waymo, for instance, is a massive opportunity. But they need to become a commercial success before being touted as innovation.
    Jun 24, 2020 3
    • Amazon
      gKqD52

      Go to company page Amazon

      gKqD52
      1 day shipping might not be innovative but to get there you need to do some innovative things along the way.
      Jul 2, 2020
    • Amazon
      bigpoopy

      Go to company page Amazon

      bigpoopy
      Autonomous driving is absolutely a massive opportunity. Even with public infra, you still need to go from your house/apt to the bus stop and some people live far enough they still need to drive to the stop. Autonomous driving brings you from point A to point B anywhere. With the pandemic, it would also be much preferred to be ride hailing than on a bus full of people coughing. Also, the only time of your day that has not been monetized is your commute - itโ€™s pretty much just radio ads. Autonomous driving enables other forms of media entertainment and increased ad revenue since you no longer need to be the one driving and paying attention. Thereโ€™s many ways to monetize too such as WiFi add ons, media subscriptions, even drinks/food.

      Autonomous driving isnโ€™t useful unless you have EVs though. 18 moving parts in an EV vs 2000+ in ICE means significant maintenance cost savings, and million mile batteries exceeding standard 200k ICE mileage plus cheaper electricity vs cost of gas is what would bring autonomous driving to a price point that would capture most of the market.
      Jul 3, 2020
  • AT&T / Eng
    vlad_{โ€ขโ€ข}

    Go to company page AT&T Eng

    vlad_{โ€ขโ€ข}
    Amazon is ๐Ÿคฎ
    Jun 24, 2020 0