The thread is a dark window into the world of growth-focused tech, where Thakur listed the multiple points of disconnection between the ads and search teams, discussing how the search team wasn’t able to finely optimize engagement on Google without “Hacking engagement,” a term that means effectively tricking users into spending more time on a site, and that doing so would lead them to “Abandon work on efficient journeys.” In one email, Fox adds that there was a “Pretty big disconnect between what finance and ads want” and what search was doing. The man who deposed Ben Gomes - someone who worked on Google Search from the very beginning - was so shit at his job that in 2009 Yahoo effectively threw in the towel on its own search technology, instead choosing to license Bing’s engine in a ten-year deal. Since Prabhakar took the reins in 2020, Google Search has dramatically declined, with the numerous “Core” search updates allegedly made to improve the quality of results having an adverse effect, increasing the prevalence of spammy, search engine optimized content.

Source: The Man Who Killed Google Search