Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Silicon Valley Stumbles in World Beyond Software

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 73 posts

Re: Silicon Valley Stumbles in World Beyond Software

#21

Post by Retric »

Analemma_ wrote: post #20
Retric wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scale is important, google makes ~20 billion in profit per year making these relatively minor bets. Further even if these projects never return a dime directly they have a halo effect which helps the overall company.

> Scale is important, google makes ~20 billion in profit per year making these relatively minor bets. Sorry, what? The Other Bets segment loses $2.5 billion per year.

Which is included in Alphabet's $4.9 billion profit Q2 FY2016.

Sure, they might have made an extra 0.6 billion that quarter, but it's not exactly a hidden bet. Further, these are R&D losses, so it's hard to say what the long term impact is, but it's unlikely to be exactly -2.5 billion / year.

Re: Silicon Valley Stumbles in World Beyond Software

#22

Post by Xcelerate »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #8

The fact that companies like Facebook and Google are spending billions of dollars/year on undisclosed research projects is in my view a gigantic failure of corporate governance. I think investors are going to be hugely disappointed when they find out that they thought they put their money into Internet advertising cash cows, and now that money is gone, spent on building jetpacks and space elevators. I do think those…

All you need is one of those projects to work to recoup the losses many times over. Relying solely on advertising revenue forever is probably a bad idea.

Re: Silicon Valley Stumbles in World Beyond Software

#23

Post by diggan »

webmaven wrote: post #7
JPKab wrote: post #2

Paywall. Is there a way around it to read the article?

Reliable workaround for paywalled articles when you've exceeded the permitted number of free articles: - Copy the link. - Open an incognito browser window. - Paste the URL into the address bar / omnibox. - Hit return.

> - Paste the URL into the address bar / omnibox.

Many websites seems to keep track of you with a combination of cookies and IP. But many also allow you through if you come from Google, so replace this step with "Paste URL into Google search, then click first result" and it should work.

Re: Silicon Valley Stumbles in World Beyond Software

#24

Post by Tempest1981 »

digi_owl wrote: post #15
KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #8

The fact that companies like Facebook and Google are spending billions of dollars/year on undisclosed research projects is in my view a gigantic failure of corporate governance. I think investors are going to be hugely disappointed when they find out that they thought they put their money into Internet advertising cash cows, and now that money is gone, spent on building jetpacks and space elevators. I do think those…

Then what is? Seems to me to be very similar to the glory days of PARC and such where they seemed to have the funds to research just about anything. Lets not forget that Xerox brought the world the GUI, laser printer and Ethernet by funding PARC, even if they in the end was not who ended up monetizing the tech (laser printer excluded).

Right, what are the other options?

* Government? Would be targeted as waste. (Maybe sneak it into NASA?)

* Startup? Would anyone fund it? No short term payout.

* Non-profit?

* Billionaire's pet project?

Re: Silicon Valley Stumbles in World Beyond Software

#25

Post by hueving »

diggan wrote: post #23
webmaven wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reliable workaround for paywalled articles when you've exceeded the permitted number of free articles: - Copy the link. - Open an incognito browser window. - Paste the URL into the address bar / omnibox. - Hit return.

> - Paste the URL into the address bar / omnibox. Many websites seems to keep track of you with a combination of cookies and IP. But many also allow you through if you come from Google, so replace this step with "Paste URL into Google search, then click first result" and it should work.

incognito doesn't include cookies from your regular sessions

Re: Silicon Valley Stumbles in World Beyond Software

#26

Post by st3v3r »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #8

The fact that companies like Facebook and Google are spending billions of dollars/year on undisclosed research projects is in my view a gigantic failure of corporate governance. I think investors are going to be hugely disappointed when they find out that they thought they put their money into Internet advertising cash cows, and now that money is gone, spent on building jetpacks and space elevators. I do think those…

It's never been a secret that the company is controlled by the founders. Any investor who invests not realizing this, and that they're going to throw money at research projects like this, has only themself to blame.

Re: Silicon Valley Stumbles in World Beyond Software

#27

Post by wil421 »

nostrademons wrote: post #13
wil421 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't work and hasn't for some time. I'm not sure if it's for all sites but the web link rarely works for me. Especially the web link for WSJ.

Web link + open article in incognito.

Let me try on my desktop. Harder to open in incognito on mobile.

Re: Silicon Valley Stumbles in World Beyond Software

#28

Post by david927 »

mc32 wrote: post #14

I still don't get the foray into delivery of physical low value products. The cost of delivery is a sufficient portion of the total value of the products so as to make it economically impractical for most cases. And we have the example of Peapod and WebVan which didn't just foretell but proved unless it was for specialized markets, it's a proposal for hemorrhaging money. Even if you get automation and you perfect the…

The cost of delivery

You argue that as if it's a constant -- and that it's not is the point. The exact innovation they are stumbling on is a way to lower that cost to near zero.

Drone technology will eventually happen. The question is how far out it is. And make no mistake, when it does happen, it will truly be a revolution (without the hyperbole).

Re: Silicon Valley Stumbles in World Beyond Software

#30

Post by jgalt212 »

icebraining wrote: post #17
KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #8

The fact that companies like Facebook and Google are spending billions of dollars/year on undisclosed research projects is in my view a gigantic failure of corporate governance. I think investors are going to be hugely disappointed when they find out that they thought they put their money into Internet advertising cash cows, and now that money is gone, spent on building jetpacks and space elevators. I do think those…

Just as an example, in Q2 of this year, Alphabet had a 21% YoY increase in revenue, and a 43% YoY increase in profit. Gigantic failure indeed. Besides, they're public companies. Investors might not know exactly which moonshot projects they're investing in, but the overall numbers are published four times a year. There's no major surprises.

very true. Investors can always vote with their feet.
Post reply on HN