The day I call Google "Alphabet" is the day I refer to the rapper as "Snoop Lion."
You would be way late on that. Even he dropped Snoop Lion.
G is for Google
241–250 of 607 posts
Re: G is for Google
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
One thing I've heard is that this would help them in terms of taxes, allowing them to write off projects that don't make money, although I'm not entirely clear on how Alphabet would accomplish this. That would be no joke if that was a reason to do it.
couldn't they do that now anyway with all being under the same entity. I don't think this helps with taxes (at least not in this regard). Either way, WOW!
I see. I wasn't entirely clear on it, and I guess the source I got it from wasn't either.
Re: G is for Google
#243From the SEC form making this official, here are the separate companies under Alphabet Inc:
Google, Calico, Nest, Fiber, Ventures, Capital, X.
Looks like Search / ads, YouTube, Maps, Apps, and Android will stay under Google Inc.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/0001288776150...
Re: G is for Google
#244Wow, they are doing letters? Really? Letters? Hey is Eric Schmidt still in the building somewhere? Ask him how well Planets worked out for Sun Microsystems. Interesting strategy, hard to second guess from the outside of course. Sun's motivation was to figure out whether the other parts of the company could stand on their own[1], it also makes it less fiscally complicated to discharge an entire group into the void. Th…
An alternative model is Samsung (and several other Korean chaebols), where upper management decided that the individual companies would be hurt by trying to act in the interests of other Samsung companies, and should act in the market on their own - e.g. how Samsung's components (touchscreens, SoCs) are sold to Apple, their mobile division's great competitor. This kind of heads-I-win, tails-you-lose strategy is enabled by the high level of autonomy lower-level groups have.
Re: G is for Google
#245[deleted]
Re: G is for Google
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't read it that way. All of Google's subsidiaries are subsidiaries of Alphabet, as is Google. But divisions inside of Google (Android, Youtube, &c) remain Google. The big news is that Larry and Sergey are stepping back into a more Warren and Charlie kind of role, and Sundar Pichai is taking over as CEO of Google. My question is, what does "slimmed down" Google mean?
I wonder where platforms (the HW company inside of Google that builds all their machines and switches) ends up. If they make it their own 'letter' (H is for Hardware?) then they could potentially have it build data center hardware for other companies. That would be interesting.
Related to my response to another one of your comments, this would be a VERY Samsung move; I don't know if they'll do it, though. Depends if they see their infrastructure hardware more as a competitive advantage for their internet-services business or as a marketable product in itself.
Re: G is for Google
#247This is a big move, which might also possibly help with EU anti-trust accusations by splitting up the big-ol' monolithic GOOG into functionally separate units.
Did I miss something in the announcement? When people say that Google is "monolithic", they're saying that Google contains Youtube (#1 video site), search (#1 search), Android (#1 mobile OS), maps (#1 map site), Gmail (#1 email site?), and G+ (Facebook competitor). These companies appear to remain inside the Google corporation after the "restructuring", and so this doesn't ameliorate any of EU's concerns. I think thi…
You forgot Chrome - #1 web browser
Re: G is for Google
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't read it that way. All of Google's subsidiaries are subsidiaries of Alphabet, as is Google. But divisions inside of Google (Android, Youtube, &c) remain Google. The big news is that Larry and Sergey are stepping back into a more Warren and Charlie kind of role, and Sundar Pichai is taking over as CEO of Google. My question is, what does "slimmed down" Google mean?
> My question is, what does "slimmed down" Google mean? It looks like they're taking all the experimental research stuff out of Google and making them direct subsidiaries of Alphabet instead, particularly projects that aren't directly related to the Internet. The article talked about Life Sciences and Calico, and I have to wonder if other stuff like the self-driving cars are going to become direct Alphabet subsidiari…
Google X as a whole is going to become an Alphabet subsidiary; presumably if that takes off it will get spun off into its own Alphabet company.
A more focused company that's moving to the top level of this hierarchy is Nest.
Re: G is for Google
#249[deleted]
Re: G is for Google
#250Wow, they are doing letters? Really? Letters? Hey is Eric Schmidt still in the building somewhere? Ask him how well Planets worked out for Sun Microsystems. Interesting strategy, hard to second guess from the outside of course. Sun's motivation was to figure out whether the other parts of the company could stand on their own[1], it also makes it less fiscally complicated to discharge an entire group into the void. Th…
Ha -- the Sun planets experience was the first thing that occurred to me as well. In my experience, the planets model was a total, unequivocal failure at Sun -- and the answer to the question of whether those companies could stand on their own was actually "no" for all of them (SME, SMCC and SunSoft all needed one another; the value came from what they delivered together). And Sun customers should blame the planet mo…
> this builds much more explicit resentment from those that are profit-centers towards those that are cost-centers
An additional bit of trouble, coming from the way Google's current profits are made, is that the profit centers are mainly perceived as less glamorous than the cost centers, which seems likely to only add to the resentment. It becomes much more explicit then, that the people doing the various bits of gruntwork needed to keep AdSense working (hugely profitable, but full of jobs like "sales" and "click-fraud arms race") are funding the people getting on the news for drones (not profitable, but cool). Not impossible to manage, and I'm sure they've thought about it, but does seem challenging.