I wonder if Google has unintentionally created a self-reinforcing feedback loop where potential customers don’t trust the products will be supported for more than 24 months which leads to limited adoption which in turn leads to the products being canceled before 24 months. Pair that with other HN comments that have described a situation where it’s easier to get promoted from launching a product vs maintaining an existing product. I understand the startup-like culture where they are looking for huge successes but I think they abandon these products before they’ve had enough time or exposure.
What is humorous to me is that Google is hurting users who typically have the most influence over SaaS integrations at their company (managers) by taking away a tool that helped them deal with the part of their job most of them hate the most (hiring/recruiting).<p>If it hasn't been obvious yet to managers watching this, Google's software is not a safe investment for you to make for your company. It is only a matter of time until you will suddenly have to divert your time to figuring out how to migrate away from a Good Tool to a Less Good Tool because Google built it well then took it away. Swapping a tool like this is an abysmal resource sink for you and your company.<p>This is not the first, second, third, fourth or even fifth time this has happened, but this one should hit close to home.<p>Google's software is not a safe investment for you to make for your company.
This makes sense, Hire was born out of Bebop (founded by Diane Greene, former VMware founder/CEO).<p>Google acquihired Bebop to get Diane Greene as head of Google Cloud (which is why this product was lumped under their cloud division), but she left Google earlier this year. No reason for Google to keep it running now.
Hire user here. IMO the product was functional (and cheap relative to the market) but not good.<p>There were a lot of UX quirks that made it feel like an outside consultancy slapped some “Material” design on a pre-built app and called it a day.<p>Really I would’ve liked to see a product like this be a meta-layer on top of GSuite productivity tools. ie Interview feedback forms should be a Forms form, the job board should be more like Sites.<p>From a strategic standpoint I had no idea why they pursued this particular product. The output here never seemed particularly well-aligned to any strategic motive.
Looking through <a href="https://killedbygoogle.com" rel="nofollow">https://killedbygoogle.com</a> most of the projects look like crappy side projects so I can understand why a multibillion dollar company would kill them off.<p>My favourite one they killed was this one though:<p>Google Ride Finder<p>Killed almost 10 years ago, Google Ride Finder was a service that used GPS data to pinpoint and map the location of taxis, limos, and shuttle vehicles available for hire in 10 U.S. metro areas. It was over 4 years old.<p>A taxi app... Close, but no cigar.
Companies are going to avoid new Google offerings given this behavior.<p>They marketed Hire by Google hard. Glad we didn't sign up and waste integration effort on this.
"It was built mostly for small to medium sized businesses, with a price that ranged from $200 to $400 a month depending on how many G Suite licenses you needed."<p>Hm. Does that price seem too high? When I think small business I think mom and pop restaurants or utility stores. Would they be willing to pay so much per month just to hire people which they'll inevitably have to pay for anyways? Do small and medium businesses hire at such large rates to justify this expense?<p>Obviously I'm just armchair generaling here, I'm sure G Suite's sales team crunched the numbers to make sure they made sense. But they don't make sense to me, and I'm wondering if someone can explain why.
I'm the founder and CTO of Lever, YC S12. I also worked at Google as a PM prior to founding Lever.<p>Let me know how I can help if anyone has questions! We're a great alternative to Google Hire.
Almost every successful Google product over the last 15 years has been the result of acquiring an already-built product and marketing + distributing it well: Youtube, Nest, Waze, Doubleclick, Android.<p>Products that are organically created within Google (even Google Hire, created via acquihire) have a pretty awful track record.
Every time there's a post about a Google service being shut down, there are the usual remarks. I'm not saying they aren't deserved, but I'm curious if there's an alternate perspective here? Perhaps sunsetting these services ultimately leads to a more trim and lean Google, and better profit margins? Put another way, is it just the HN circle that is so put off by this?
Founder and CEO of Agave.com here. We're a new player in the space and we've focused on making it easy for startups to get going quickly with an ATS that doesn't suck. If you're interested in a demo or getting an invite to join (we haven't launched publicly yet), shoot me an email at jared@agave.com.
Does google actually have a worse track record on shutdowns than the average startup? Random 10 person companies shut down all the time, but we seem to pay extra attention when it's a 10 person team inside Google.
I stopped using every Google product besides Search and Maps. Still have Photos but thats replaceable. Oh and Youtube, which is not replaceable.
Haven’t used Gmail in a decade and no use for all the other stuff that no one knows if it will be around next year or not. Sorry to say but that what it has become.
I'm the founder and CTO of Lever (<a href="https://www.lever.co" rel="nofollow">https://www.lever.co</a>), a similar product and part of YC S12. I recommend you check us out!<p>I was also a PM at Google from 2007-2011. A big part of why I left and founded Lever is that I'm super passionate about enterprise software, and vertical enterprise software (even in huge markets) isn't aligned well with Google's core business.
Yet another one hits the Google Graveyard <a href="https://www.saashub.com/google-graveyard" rel="nofollow">https://www.saashub.com/google-graveyard</a>
While this is splendid news of another fallen Google product, I'm afraid this time it is different. Google has a similar alternative to outgrow and to completely replace Hire which is called Byteboard [0].<p>[0] <a href="https://byteboard.dev/" rel="nofollow">https://byteboard.dev/</a>
Starting to think that the key is to build your toys on a VM you control. That way nobody can take them away<p>Proprietary stuff is starting to become flakey not in the uptime sense but pure lifespan. Almost like planned obsolescence became a thing with gear
There is no reason this needs to be a SAAS product, and at this point we should know better than to trusting any SAAS product offered by Google.<p>I wish they would take the approach of making it trivial for me to host an open source version myself on Google Cloud rather than just throwing away the work: it would let them keep making money and mean that I could actually have enough faith to use their products.
This is surprising considering how many companies I've seen use Hire in my current job search. Was it not profitable? I wonder what the backlash is going to be for all the companies that spent time integrating it into their hiring workflows.
I just have the worst nightmare: Google abandons Photo. I have all my photos synced in Google Photo and remove duplicate in my iPhone. If they shut it down, am I screwed?
Interestingly one of the hire support links in the announcement goes to the invalid address <a href="http://perezmiguel/" rel="nofollow">http://perezmiguel/</a>. I'm guessing that is the person who worked on the announcement document.
SmartRecruiters offers a lightweight version of our enterprise product for around a similar cost. We are also offering a free data migration and Recruiting AI seat for current//former Google Hire customers. Just give us a shout if interested.<p><a href="https://www.smartrecruiters.com/resources/get-a-demo/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=ghire" rel="nofollow">https://www.smartrecruiters.com/resources/get-a-demo/?utm_so...</a>
Phew ... tragedy averted. I ranted earlier about them [0]. We didn't use google Hire exactly for this reason. And they were more expensive than existing software while providing few features with less polish.<p>And yes, they had a more aggressive sales force pushing the product, who would cold call, play the discount game, etc.<p>This could have been a good value add to the G-Suite. Alas.<p>[0] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18160658" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18160658</a>
What a bummer. By far the best candidate management software I've used. I guess it's not too crazy complicated where another company couldn't ape all the features.
I'm the CTO and co-founder of <a href="https://hirehive.com" rel="nofollow">https://hirehive.com</a>, we're an ATS built for small to medium sized companies. Our pricing is based on the number of open roles at a time.
We've been around for over 5 years and have great set of features to help your hiring process, including custom application forms and multilingual hiring. Check us out or get in touch.
I think Google, as most do, underestimated the time and effort it takes to build a recruiting suite, even for the SMB market. I've spent 5 years SmartRecruiters as PM and in partnerships. It's taken 80 engineers a good 5+ years to build a clean solution that can scale globally with different local customs, job boards, assessments, and regulations.
I think there should be a law that mandates orgs offering SaaS products (probably, with a min. base of users, say >100) to open-source their code, if they decide to sundown it. It almost appears to be the bare minimum, from a consumer protection perspective, for a responsible company (or, even Google) to do.
I did not know that this was a product, but it kindof makes sense, especially if you can leverage existing G Suite offerings.<p>I don't know how many companies were using it, which probably explains why it is being sunsetted. And they're giving it a year before turning it off.
Why do they cancel this product? Are they losing profit over this? Were they working on any new features? If no new features are required, would it be such a hassle to just keep the product working without assigning engineers to it? Only support?
This is a good decision, reflecting the wisdom of Silenus, who, legend goes, once mused that the best thing is not to be born, and if already born, to die quickly. Google is intent on gaining the lead in Cloud, and this was a distraction from that.
Google Hire is being replaced by ByteBoard <i>— <a href="https://byteboard.dev/" rel="nofollow">https://byteboard.dev/</a> —</i> which started at Area 120, Google’s incubator.
Another addition to the Google Graveyard <a href="https://www.saashub.com/google-graveyard" rel="nofollow">https://www.saashub.com/google-graveyard</a>
As usual a lot of talk in these threads from people who have actually not used the product in question but just love bashing Google for "cancelling everything".
Is there a comparison/review of all hire tools for startup and small businesses? Every Applicant Tracking System looks so expensive if you are not heftily funded...
Was it a showcase project for Bebop platform? Doesn't seems to be kind of project that Google should own/launch. 380 MM$ seems too much for this product.
Founder and CEO of Agave.com here. We're a new player in the space and we've focused on making it easy for startups to get going quickly with an ATS that doesn't suck. If you're interested in a demo or getting an invite to join (we haven't launched publicly yet), shoot me an email at jared@agave.com.
> While Hire has been successful, we’re focusing our resources on other products in the Google Cloud portfolio.<p>The corporate equivalent of "spending more time with his family."
Google is the new Yahoo.<p>They cannot keep services running for more than 24 months.<p>I would be terrified about starting to rely on any new service they create.
At this point, I have started seeing Google as a miniature of contemporary SV (with all its good and bad stuff). Lots of random products thrown out to the user only to be cancelled in a few years? Check! Occasional massively successful (and actually useful) products? Check! Lip service and virtue signaling for fads du jour (eg. diversity)? Check! Actual behavior hinting towards prioritizing profits over all else (eg. lots of low-wage contractors in lieu of full time employees)? Check!<p>So it won't be a surprise if there are internal pitching sessions where Product Managers would be pitching their ideas to VPs just like YC demo days. Then get started with 2-3 engineers, put out the product, take it to some decent success level (eg. US-only, English-only, Android/iOS-only launch), pocket your promo, move on, rinse and repeat!!<p>The real question for me is is this all by design? Could it be that they want exactly this kind of setup? I won't be surprised if Google leadership is thinking this way...
Hey friends. Lever is a great ATS so definitely check them out.<p>Another one to add to the list is attract.ai (ATS + automated sourcing and engagement), intelliHR (HRIS) and Greenhouse.io (ATS).