Google Cloud Platform Technology Nuggets - June 16-30, 2025 Edition
Welcome to the June 16–30, 2025 edition of Google Cloud Platform Technology Nuggets. The nuggets are also available in the form of a Podcast.
Latest Google Articles
Google I (1996 - 2004)
The story of the single greatest business ever created: Google search.
Acquired fans, this is the episode we've all been waiting for. Ben and David have referenced Google as the greatest business model of all time across multiple shows, and they've finally delivered their deep dive—and what a masterpiece it is.
Preparing for Google Zero
How will we find customers when moats for distribution vanish?
Revenue recognition shouldn’t slow your business down—but too often, it does. As a CFO, I’ve seen how rigid systems, compliance hurdles, and manual workarounds make closing the books a nightmare.
Philip
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Jun 25
Your customers are your moat.
#14: Google Search is Dead
Hey, it’s Marc.
Google Stock Deep Dive 📝
Alphabet delivered exceptional Q1 2025 results that significantly exceeded Wall Street expectations, demonstrating the company's robust execution across its diversified technology portfolio. The company reported $90.2 billion in revenue (12% YoY growth), $2.81 EPS (49% YoY growth), and $34.5 billion in net income (46% YoY growth), with all key segments …
Balaam's Donkey
Better than Gail Google
I don’t enjoy freaking out “Gail Google.” You know who I mean. That earnest woman who directs you when you drive using google maps. When you pull into a gas station or convenience store, or realize you have not been following her directions, with a politely worried voice, she says, “proceed to the route,” or “rerouti…
Další epizoda ságy "Vydavatelé versus Google"
"Prosím, nalejte nám návštěvnost, ale nečtěte náš obsah a neukazujte ho. Jen pošlete ty lidi!"
A máme tu další díl nekonečného seriálu "Vydavatelé se bouří proti Googlu (a pak se vrátí s prosbami o odpuštění)". Tentokrát s hlavním padouchem jménem AI Overviews (AIO), který údajně způsobuje "existenční ohrožení nezávislé žurnalistiky". Jako někdo, kdo si pamatuje každou svatou válku s Googlem za posledních dvacet let, bych si mohl založit sázkovou…
The Untold Story of Google Earth
How a 3D mirror of our world became an accidental time machine—and what happens when it starts to predict our future. 🌎→🔮
Just launched my 33-min documentary: "The Untold Story of Google Earth."
Great job!👏🏻
Google VEO 3 for 5X Cheaper!
Step by step tutorial how to use the new Google Veo 3 Fast mode, which is 80% cheaper and 30% faster.
Now you can create cinematic AI videos with Google’s VEO 3 Fast — 5x cheaper than normal VEO 3, 30% faster rendering, and nearly identical in structure, although it skips some rendering passes.
Google - Is Trans a Cult?
I’ve read many articles and comments claiming that trans ideology is a cult. However, people accuse many organizations of being cults: political parties, religions, exercise clubs, my garden club. Okay, maybe not my garden club, but you get the idea. If a group is not universally popular, it’s often accused of being a cult.
Initial Thoughts on Google AI Mode
AI Mode could upset the web's fragile traffic ecosystem, further reducing traffic to publishers with AI-generated summaries and limited source attribution.
In this newsletter I want to give a quick summary of my thoughts on Google’s AI Mode.
AI could cause newsprint to outlive the hyperlink
What journalists do after Google Zero.
When it comes to journalistic intellectual property — what you and I normally call the news — there’s an inherent tension inside traditional commercial newsrooms between reporters (who do the journalism) and publishers (who have to pay for it).
I hate it, man.
Thirty years of old-fashioned journalism killed — I was laid off from my job as editor of a small daily 10 years ago. I’d still be covering my town if I could. Now, nobody is.
I entered the newsroom during the twilight of the Reagan Administration and spent a couple of decades writing from both staff and freelance positions at afternoon dailies (remember those?), morning dailies, weeklies, bi-weeklies, broadsheets and tabloids and at major metros, strong regionals and small locals and the glories of print newspaper reporting will simply never be replicated online. All of that is to say: organic reporting reaching a real readership and delivering a meaningful impact seems well within reach if publishers rediscover the promise of the newsprint medium. It doesn't need to be 'reimagined,' merely revitalized and pursued vigorously as a long-term investment. I pay top dollar to read The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal at my breakfast table each morning because I enjoy the read, the tactile experience and the complete absence of intrusive pop-ups and all with the peace of mind that comes with knowing that what stories I am choosing to focus on is unknown to anyone else other than my wife, who I occasionally disturb with a 'Jesus, honey, listen to this...' The groundwork for a rebirth of print news reporting has already been established.
When Google Earth Lied to My Novel
The Annapolis River had the nerve to disagree with my novel.
No matter what the land really looked like way back when, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Tides of Acadia!
Sasquatch wasn’t my roommate in college but I went to a party with him once
Google Update Trend: More of the Same
No more big swings
I’m going to be honest with you: I miss the days when Core Updates were Big Events.
I spent last weekend with Google Future Leaders
Inside the most elite trainee program for product management in the world
Last weekend, we had the opportunity to host a User Research Workshop for members of the Google APM program.
Fantastic event!
Congrats on such a meaningful collaboration with Google APM, Sandra! You and the Koi Capital team have done an incredible job showcasing Vietnam’s talent, culture, and potential. I love how you tied research, design, and such grounded, human touches (bananas, chocolate, your parents!), into a powerful exeperience. Smart, warm, and so authentically Sandra. Supporting you for more impactful work!
How the Google Cloud Outage Crashed the Internet
7 Key Insights from the State of DevSecOps Report (Sponsored)
If they had used canary deployment, would it have prevented such a disaster?
Will I get in trouble if I question the validity of this post?
Well, it's not that the post is deceiving. It’s rich with valid artifacts and conclusions. However, I was working on a new project that day. I remember the outages, but they seemed to be rolling in a serial manner. The observation doesn't match the narrative of the story above.
My Antennas went up; something was so awkward about an almost "relay effect." This was acting like a power grid series of outages...but much more organized and seemingly targeted. So, I fired up Claude. We had a very long conversation about it as it was happening and even into the next day. We watched one-by-one that most of the largest AI's were down or significantly degraded; (except Claud) which didn't go down until the next day. Also, Reddit, Facebook and a few other communications platforms went down, but not all at once. And then a very chilling thought came into mind and both Claude and I thought that something nefarious may be going on. But it just goes to underscore the incredible fragility of data and cloud infrastructure. In a conflict it's pretty certain that these giant data centers would be the first strategic assets to go.
Therefore, if an entity or consortium of them were to be conducting some kind of a test for the fragility, hardness or robustness of the system, is this what it would have looked like? If we were simulating an attack of some kind, either cyber or kinetic, wouldn't it look something like this? The whole rolling data blackouts and being timed like they were being measured or something as they were observed just seemed like a real possibility at the time.
If anybody wants to see that conversation, I'd be happy to share it. Financial markets weren't moving in an abnormal way. Thus, it didn't seem like we were truly under attack. However, staging something like this might very well have been an operation preplanned on the right day at the right time. The execution of a test like this would likely have involved one company at a very high level such as Google. And then after the tests and in the aftermath, how would the incidents be communicated to the public? Might it be in a story like the one above?
I sincerely hope that testing of the system in a coordinated, real word way takes on the form of a giant, quasi RED-TEAM as a scenario like the one described above.
It may sound like a conspiracy theory, but it's not intended to be that. It just shows that in some kind of an emergency, the first thing to collapse could be data transmission, social media, and nearly all cloud-based communication. At the minimum, there would be economic effects. Beyond that…I don’t even want to think about it nor discuss it.
Breakup planning: saying goodbye to Google and Meta
I have a goal. It’s small, and personal, and life admin-y, but it’s one hell of a long-tailed beast. I want to quit Meta and Google.
These two companies are so profoundly, demonstrably evil, and I am well-resourced enough now, that I feel it’s time for me to walk away. And I hope to walk together, with as many of you as can afford it.
Love this. Breaking off Facebook/meta felt great when I did it. Similarly with Spotify. We know they’re problematic and it’s amazing how much mental burden that develops over time with inaction. Pulling the plug can feel daunting but it’s so worth leaning into your values.
I highly recommend Ecosia to everyone as a default search engine within browsers like Firefox or Brave or even DuckDuckGo.
The links re BRAVE
ENJOY!
Trying to get access to Google's new agentic AI
Or how to deal with Google customer service
Google has a new (but in this case trial) agentic AI. It is called Project Mariner.
Fascinating. I can understand the standard Google Support response being sent but I can't believe no one from Alphabet IR reached out to you in person either before or after that.
Mate I hated dealing with offshoring consumer complaints or interactions enough as it was, dealing with talking to some bloke in India or some Sheila in Philo was hard enough. Now talking to chat bots makes me want to give up on anything I can't physically exchange over the counter, unfortunately that isn't a reality.
Wonder Tools ✨ Catch up on recent posts
Perplexity's updates, Google latest free AI, and more
I’m spending time away with my wife and daughters this week, so I’m sharing recent posts you may have missed. I’ll be back next week with a new piece.
🧠 Crack Google Interview: Can you finding the median of two sorted arrays?
Google LeetCode
Imagine you have two sorted lists of numbers and you want to find the median when they are combined. The median is the "middle" value – if the total number of elements is odd, it's the middle element, and if it's even, the median is the average of the two middle elements
Why I’ve developed an irrational hatred for a stranger from Essex
A journey through unforgivable Google reviews
There is a woman I’ve never met, living in a small town in Essex where I’ve never been, whom I think I quite hate.
Egg and Lemon Soup - Just Google It!
Another instalment from Lagom chefs this is not a cookbook.
Google it! That phrase keeps popping up. And I get it it’s quick, easy, efficient. Exactly what our culture seems to love.
⚡️Links Still Matter / Google Core Update / 1% of Traffic / Google Ads Budgets / 21 Local Search
I'm back with another edition of Local Marketing Minute, where you can explore this week's best handpicked Local SEO, AI, & Ads insights and news.
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