Nah. Larry doesn't get a pass on this one. I was there at the time, and this (unlike, say, Cloud) clearly was one of "his" projects, something he pushed relentlessly and cared about a lot. That's why G+ was where you went if you wanted a quick and easy promo: you could launch a total embarrassing turd and just because Larry liked G+ that turd would be promotion worthy nevertheless.
Seeing the FB revenue figures today I can see why he cared, but I think he undermined the long term prospects of the company with this shit quite a bit, and distracted it from more valuable pursuits as well. That's all on him, not on Gundotra.
Seeing the FB revenue figures today I can see why he cared, but I think he undermined the long term prospects of the company with this shit quite a bit, and distracted it from more valuable pursuits as well. That's all on him, not on Gundotra.