I find it hard to believe there aren't worse ones out there. But off the top of my head I actually can't think of any...
Quite incredible that you can say a sentence like that, while talking about something within Google(/Alphabet) that's actually an important area for them (not just some random little side project), and yet it isn't hyperbolic, it's sincere!
Everyone there overseeing it (from direct management all the way up to C-suite) should truly feel embarrassed.
Off the top of my head: workaday
Which are amazing! Argon’s insights on code review and copywriting are phenomenal, and make these hoops well worth it! But geez, it’s horrifying that we had to figure this out!
Argon also tends to write particularly warm copy and external messages - unsurprising with Google's particular access to email data and caches of writing from the early internet.
We haven't really used it to write code from scratch - generally, we're wary of these exact things, and feel like Claude continues to have good enough architectural instincts that we've doubled down into the Claude ecosystem, with mods and tooling (including this multi-agent reviewer) that accelerate our workflows.
Eventually I gave up. Anthropic/OpenAI took < 10 minutes to get things going.
Enabling the same service via Apple Developers meanwhile took me minutes and I never felt lost, confused or frustrated.
Please, Google, just pick a random dev off the street and ask them to do something (that should be) simple on GCloud, then on e.g. Cloudflare. Analyse why they took longer (and cursed more) in GCloud and fix that. The fact that (despite Cloudflare having awful docs as well) my first ever Workers deploy including third-party DNS setup and R2 took less time then getting an API key from GCloud says something
Their backend looks very confused too. I consume their models through OpenRouter and requests are processed randomly by AI Studio or Vertex. API key management had several entry points for a while too, with the option to query the same model with a GCP, Firebase and/or AI Studio API key.
you could pin the provider to always get one or the other
When I signed a few devs at work up for Gemini for Code I had to go into Google Cloud, jump through several different screens, assign special permissions to each dev to make it work and even when it did work...it was insanely confusing compared to every other option out there.
It's to the point where I'm better off asking Grok Bot set it up for me rather than ever deal with figuring it out again.
https://x.com/thsottiaux/status/2083596911060324570?a=iif1W7...
Is this true anymore? I feel like a lot of the best talent have better opportunities elsewhere where they won't get bogged down by entrenched bureaucracy. Not to mention the Google interview process and physical locations filter out a lot of talented people from even wanting to apply.
This could be used as a preface for so many things.
Do they still have 5 messaging apps or did they finally trim it down.
It's been a baffling question for over a decade (or more)
Right. They lack no resources. Therefore, what is happening must be what they want to happen.
Vertex AI existed as an ML platform before the GenAI era. DeepMind was doing it's thing in another silo. Then Gemini products came along. Then they acquired the Windsurf folks.
A smaller company would have no choice but to focus on one team and one product. Google has a Darwinian ecosystem and someone has to come along and smash teams together, clumsily refactoring the technology and user journeys.
Their employees read HN though and their VPs hear customers complain about onboarding. I hear there is an effort underway to create one unified agentic platform.
Eng was neutered at that large org. Product people had the "vision" and the say. A lot of product people just used our team's product as a stepping stone onto their next role and in the end it showed. I would hope Google has a better culture...but theres a good chance it doesn't.