> The managers at Google have become self interested promotion hunters, and the programmers weak sycophants. It wasn't like this in the early days when I was there, the best ideas won, but then the B player managers were hired and the rot started.

I bet they run some metrics, and while hyper-intelligent persons like you are annoyed, there is a chance that avg joes representing 95% of revenue are fine with that.

In the early days they werent a publicy traded company and Brin/Page did not get exposed to the taste of being ultra-wealthy.

Steve Jobs looking back now is incredibly rare - someone who was wealthy but had the spirit of innovation to keep going again and again.

When it comes to anything tech related, the HN crowd are trend setters.

And.... the world is crying out for a google alternative. If it ever appears, the tech savvy people will be the first to move, followed by everyone else.