The Head Of Google Search, Amit Singhal Is Leaving The Company

[travelin cat]

My life has been a dream journey. From a little boy growing up in the Himalayas dreaming of the Star Trek computer, to an immigrant who came to the United States with two suitcases and not much else, to the person responsible for Search at Google, every turn has enriched me and made me a better person.

[plus.google.com...]

[engine]

Who saw that coming!

Hmmm, let me think, who is there at Google that's on extended leave that might want the vacant seat. ;)

[netmeg]

Too late! It's John Giannadrea.

[thesempost.com...]

[tangor]

Will there be a change in the nature of g search with a new head? Time will tell!

[Robert Charlton]

John Giannadrea

Obviously, he has superb credentials, but I thought I'd look for a video of him speaking to get a better sense of what he's like.

Unexpectedly, I came across this video of him talking about Freebase, and I was pleased to see that he's an extraordinarily good communicator. I only had time to watch several short chunks in the video, where he talks about Freebase and about the Knowledge Graph. He takes a very complicated subject and makes it very easy to follow....

2008-04-17-freebase-Giannandrea-PARCForum-v1215-broadband.mp4
trt 58:57
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa__x-wUKWw [youtube.com]

From what I watched, it was clear that he and Amit have subsequently been working very closely together on the Knowledge Graph. Also worth reading is the summary of his background... below the YouTube video. It really is impressive.

[glakes]

With Google AI, who needs employees? With big corps, who needs small businesses to be found in search results?

Times are changing!

[heisje]

Good riddance to Amit Singhal. He has been little more than a lackey to Google management, serving its cloaked sinister commercial goals, subject to serious widespread complaints and authority investigations (EU etc). He has been accessory to immense damage, with little (if any) ethical scruples, paid handsomely in exchange for his "good" services. Little more than a paid henchman, eliminated by the gang for some reason we will never know.

This guy has the nerve to publish a "do good" departing message. What a travesty.

.

[engine]

Thanks for the info on the video, Robert_Charlton. I watched some of it but the audio reproduction was quite poor and had to give up.

[heisje]

Be vigilant of bright scientists' additional agendas, beyond the realm of science. It is natural & legitimate to follow, respect and admire bright minds - but beware of their additional agendas. Giannandrea is at this time first and foremost a Google shareholder, and an appointee of the major shareholders. AI, Knowledge Graphs, etc, are all well and dandy, but Giannandrea's primary job is to mind the "shop".

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[Robert Charlton]

...the audio reproduction was quite poor and had to give up.

engine, sorry you had problems, as there's a bunch of good material in the video. Yes, the audio has multiple issues, made worse because YouTube seems to get throttled or compressed, particularly on Chrome. This video for me was more or less intelligible on Firefox, except when Giannadrea spoke rapidly in acronyms.

What came across, even from just a partial viewing, though, is that Giannadrea knows a lot of stuff, and (audio technicians willing) can present it extremely well. An important point he makes, which explains one facet of what needs dealing with, is that "We are awash in un-reconciled data". Note, btw, that Giannadrea's presentation begins about 2:10 into the video.

With regard to the potential return of Matt Cutts, I can only speculate that Matt could return as something like a head of competitive search, as Giannadrea's title is Vice President of Engineering, which potentially leaves another title open. Matt's been involved in a lot of patents that suggest his knowledge and vision extend far beyond catching spammers.

I also see that the depth and breadth of Giannadrea's interests might well expand the scope of the search engine to much more than ten blue links on a page... and in fact that happened long ago... to the point where the job requires multiple "heads".