Peter Hagen

I worked on Google Maps monetization, and then on Maps itself.

Monetization was a dismal failure. I don't know how well they're doing now, but Maps was a gigantic money-loser, forever. I'd be a little surprised if it didn't still lose money, but maybe less. I don't what those "pin ads" cost, but I'd bet it's way less than a search ad.

If you don't... See more

“Right now, people [say] ‘you have this research lab, you have this API [software], you have the partnership with Microsoft, you have this ChatGPT thing, now there is a GPT store.’ But those aren’t really our products,” Altman said. “Those are channels into our one single product, which is intelligence, magic intelligence in the sky. I think that’s... See more

Sony earns a cut of the sales of third-party games on PlayStation, which of course it gets to keep with first-party games – meaning that its own games can justify very large budgets more easily, as they generate more revenue per unit sold. A further justification for taking this kind of risk on high development costs is that the games themselves... See more

please take a moment to read Jeff Atwood's and Joel Spolsky's introductions of Stack Overflow.3 Did you notice what I did? Both describe Stack Overflow as the solution to a very specific problem: programming knowledge locked up in minds and forums whence it's difficult to retrieve. They also explain how they intend to solve the problem including... See more

For years now, the best-trafficked pages at game journalism sites haven't been reviews. They've been stories with headlines like "Pokémon Go Type chart, Type effectiveness and weakness explained" and "Mystic Messenger email guide - all correct answers for every guest in Casual, Deep and Another Story". And as much as they continue to drive traffic... See more

At a well-run seed stage startup, engineers will often describe the work experience as intoxicating . At a larger company, the best you get is "enjoyable".

I had countless conversations with reporters in the pre-Elon Musk Twitter era who could not fathom doing their jobs without the site, who insisted that Twitter was where sources and scoops and true insight lay. It was utterly wrong and also completely understandable in a way that made arguing about it futile: Twitter could feel like a direct... See more