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G is for Google

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Re: G is for Google

#311

Post by ariwilson »

tenoman wrote: post #272
yRetsyM wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it also interesting the non - Google companies: Businesses such as Calico, Nest, and Fiber, as well as its investing arms, such as Google Ventures and Google Capital, and incubator projects, such as Google X, will be managed separately from the Google business. Fiber is the most notable to me - seems they see this as more than an experiment and are looking to expand. YouTube not separating is an interesting on…

I think the idea was to keep anything related to ad revenue all together under Sundar, and Youtube is definitely a part of that.

Or "web services" in general.

Re: G is for Google

#313

Post by pgroves »

Seems very similar to how Berkshire Hathaway treats it's companies. CEOs run the companies, a small group at the top adds/removes companies. There is one company listed on the stock exchange, etc.

It's noteworthy that Berkshire Hathaway refuses to deal with technology companies, while Google is exclusively tech.

Re: G is for Google

#314

Post by moritzplassnig »

vonmoltke wrote: post #290
Spooky23 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fiber is the hint about what this really means. Capital intense businesses like ISPs or car companies are expensive to operate and the financials would drag down Google. In this model, the big shareholders get to dilute risks in these ventures, while retaining the ability to exponentially increase their personal wealth.

This reorganization makes no difference on the financials. The release explicitly stated the company is trading at the conglomerate level.

It will have an impact - they will break out the Google Financials in Q4 & overall be more transparent about the different projects.

Re: G is for Google

#315

Post by empyrical »

mtgx wrote: post #213
mrwilliamchang wrote: post #194

Sounds like Alphabet is setup to do lots of major acquisitions. Game changer for tech ecosystem.

Will Alphabet buy Apple? (with the trillions it will make from Planetary Resources, which I assume will incorporate as well eventually). Apple even has a letter reserved for it - The A in Alphabet.

I thought the A might end up being Android? (though it doesnt seem as if Android has split off from Google yet)

Re: G is for Google

#316

Post by djloche »

Someone1234 wrote: post #151
vonmoltke wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The danger of conglomerates that give so much freedom to their subsidiaries is that said subsidiaries start actually competing against each other and hurting the business overall.

Danger? You mean benefit? Companies not succeeding themselves even as they fall from relevance is a massive reason why large companies fail. Look at Blackberry, they had an internal project working against the rest of the company (namely Android on Blackberry hardware) that could, had it been allowed, saved the company. Instead Blackberry are either going to be purchased OR go bankrupt. Honestly internal competition…

My current blackberry device runs android apps. So the project seems to have been a somewhat of a success.

The company appears to still be alive and still has a few billion dollars in the bank despite now years of people saying that they're going bankrupt. I wish I was 'going bankrupt' like Blackberry.

Blackberry seems to have secured a solid niche position in mobile security, despite losing the majority of their mobile phone business to more end-consumer electronics driven companies (primarily samsung & apple).

Re: G is for Google

#318

Post by idlewords »

noelsusman wrote: post #144
coldtea wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wave, Plus, Glasses at least. If we are to include less ambitious stuff, Google Video, Orkut, Chromebooks (never went far), Reader, Google Code, Dart, nothing much came out of Morotola, etc. And let's see were those "self driving cars" will go, market-wise...

Chromebooks are pretty popular. The first generation wasn't very good but the more recent ones are selling well. Reader was very popular relative to the size of the RSS reader market. Google bought Motorola for the patent portfolio and sold off the rest, so I'm not sure how that was a failure. Motorola also turned around their mobile division with the Moto X under Google (over 100% increase in mobile sales due to the…

Reader was the living kernel of what could have potentially been a successful Google social network.

Re: G is for Google

#319

Post by adventured »

This is Google moving into a structure akin to Berkshire Hathaway, which is something the Google founders have admired for a long time. They're changing into a conglomerate, run with a thin layer of management at the top. Their talk about empowering strong CEOs, and having the subsidiary companies operate independently, is an exact copy of what Buffett does in regards to businesses owned by Berkshire.

Re: G is for Google

#320

Post by idlewords »

franciscomello wrote: post #293

Here's why I think Google's transformation into Alphabet was not a wise one. As Google cofounder Larry Page, now CEO of the holding company Alphabet, that will have as its main subsidiary Google, the search company, said earlier today: >As Sergey and I wrote in the original founders letter 11 years ago, “Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.” As part of that, we also said that you coul…

Why do they care what Carl Icahn or any other investor thinks? Page and Brin control the voting shares. The biggest risk is bad PR or a public perception of failure, not any substantive challenge.
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