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

Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 463 posts

Re: Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline

#271

Post by robryan »

shuntress wrote: post #162
thearn4 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The endless spigot of cash from Steam is something that does enable Valve to take some very experimental leaps (VR, Steam machines, SteamOS, etc.) In my opinion, Valve also has the same shortcomings as google: practically zero customer support, and an un-curated app platform full of shovelware (finding gems on the Steam and the Google Play & Chrome Web Stores can be tricky). But there is still a ton to admire in both…

You don't use steam to find gems. Steam is just where you go to buy them.

The user review system for games is the best I know of and arguably more useful in deciding what to buy than critic reviews.

Steam is also constantly promoting new games to you and making suggestions based on what you currently play. There is also the social aspect in that you can see who is playing what, leading to new discoveries.

Re: Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline

#272

Post by eropple »

user5994461 wrote: post #132
sahaj wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"All of Google's products are complementary products that create lock-in" I disagree. Chrome was created to be a standards based browser, Android to unify the different phone operating systems circa 2004. I picked Google products because they allowed me to get out if I needed to. Gmail provides IMAP, POP. Docs and Music let you take out your data as needed. Google intentionally creates a way to get your data out. All…

They're just ad distributing products. Ever tried to install an adblocker on Android? There isn't anything you can do without rooting your phone. Seriously, it should be called Addroid. Ever tried to install adblock/ublock on Chrome? only to find out that it doesn't exist in the chrome store or was removed again.

> Ever tried to install an adblocker on Android?

Yes. Works across browsers and against in-app ads, too. https://block-this.com

> Ever tried to install adblock/ublock on Chrome?

Yes.

> only to find out that it doesn't exist in the chrome store or was removed again.

Under no circumstances. AdBlock Plus has never, as far as I know, been removed, nor has uBlock Origin.

Re: Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline

#273

Post by chipperyman573 »

kohanz wrote: post #211
rqebmm wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve also has the prestige of being a high-profile gaming company, which brings with it choice pick of engineers. A "normal" enterprise app consulting shop doesn't have the luxury of every computer geek clamoring to work there. If you have first-pick of incoming talent, it makes sense that you can get away with giving those employees an extremely high degree of autonomy.

Is that really true though? I remember when me and my engineering peers were in our teens, some of us dreamed of working for a gaming company, but now that we're older no one does. Most actually have a very negative perception of employment conditions in that industry.

Game development is what gives the games industry a bad name. While valve is supposedly working on a few new games now[0] and updating 3 of their older games (tf2/dota 2/cs:go), it would be entirely possible to work exclusively on Steam (their online store) and never touch game code, especially with their rolling desks that literally roll so you move to whatever department you want, whenever you want.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fSt7BjJ29c

Re: Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline

#274

Post by eropple »

throwaway98237 wrote: post #115
bad_user wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of Google's products are complementary products that create lock-in. For instance both Chrome and Android have been created with the purpose of controlling the underlying platform that people use, in order for them to not be at the mercy of the other platform owners, like Apple or Microsoft. And it worked. This is very obvious to anybody with an interest in how microeconomics works. For example this is why open s…

"All of Google's products..." and there are many "create lock-in." so very true How have there been no anti-trust related issues here?!

Because antitrust law is made of words that mean things. There is no field, anywhere, in which Google has the monopolistic position necessary, or has been shown to be in an oligopolic group necessary, to invoke antitrust law against the company. Not search, not ads, not mobile, not e-mail, not anywhere. They have competition, and healthy competition, in literally every field.

Re: Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline

#275

Post by AznHisoka »

rsync wrote: post #231
ChuckMcM wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly correct. If you have a printing press that is dumping a couple of billon dollars into the basement every quarter in spite of what you're spending, you have the luxury of trying all sorts of novel things from a business perspective. That said, the margins on the search advertising business are shrinking, and have been for years now. You can cover for that by eliminating profligate spending and then eve…

""the magic is gone."" Not only is the magic gone, but the boring, day to day fabric of functionality is gone. Have you tried to really search for anything with google in the past five years ? I don't mean meandering, aimless, consumer-centric searches like "new fitness watch" where any result tangentally related is useful ... I mean a specific, meaningful, concise search with multiple keywords, all of which are key…

i share the same experience. i have been using google to find articles that share a specific opinion so i do very specific searches in hopes of finding editorial opinion pieces. what i get back are lame how-to guides and wikipedia articles.

Re: Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline

#276

Post by sien »

htrp wrote: post #178
sbov wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many successful companies do the exact opposite of Google? Have you done any research to determine which company succeeded: in spite of, because of, or no effect, from these models? What about the - surely - hundreds or thousands of companies that failed with Google (or not Google's) model? Trying to imitate success seems to turn into a cargo cult. For whatever reason people seem to shutoff their brains when talk…

>How many successful companies do the exact opposite of Google? Have you done any research to determine which company succeeded: in spite of, because of, or no effect, from these models? What about the - surely - hundreds or thousands of companies that failed with Google (or not Google's) model? Do you know of any examples offhand? Definitely agree that it's a virtuous cycle of talent -> revenue - > perks -> talent >…

The model of trying to land smart people with perks like kitchens, foosball tables, Aeron chairs and all the rest and hope that they come up with something that makes lots of money was what many companies tried in the first Dot Com boom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble#Free_spending

Offhand examples are the list of failed companies on that page.

Re: Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline

#277

Post by thesimpsons1022 »

sangnoir wrote: post #207
espadrine wrote: post #37

Contrast Google's old way of managing bets with Tesla. When Google started working on self-driving cars, they went about it academically. They did not plan a sequence of stepping stones that they could sell. They meant to have a product in an indeterminate future which should be immediately perfect and better than a human, essentially not needing a wheel. Tesla went about it with an engineering perspective. First, ca…

> The end goal is identical; but they make money along the way. Not really, there's a fundamental difference in the approach and desired result. Tesla is going for Level 3 autonomy (some human help needed on trip), Google attitude is more of Level 4 or bust. There are pros and cons to both approaches.

googles car also costs twice as much to make due to the expensive sensors

Re: Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline

#278

Post by jamez1 »

mathattack wrote: post #245
Periodic wrote: post #11

So many companies try to emulate how Google works. There are multiple books, hundreds or thousands of articles. People speculate on the perks, the review structure, the hierarchy, the autonomy. However, when other companies try to imitate Google they always fail because they're missing a crucial piece: Billions of dollars in ad revenue Google doesn't work the way it does to be successful. It works that way because it…

Yes. Many management books and theories confuse correlation with causality. Another common example, "Companies with happier employees are more successful." But perhaps causality is the other way, "Employees become happy when their companies succeed."

Or perhaps there isn't causality either way. For example, perhaps good management tends to produce both happy employees and successful companies.

Re: Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline

#279

Post by paulcole »

thearn4 wrote: post #97
matwood wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of Valve's no manager management style: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-04-27/why-there... When you have a lot of money, a lot of things work because you have a lot of money. You often see the same thing with people trying to emulate pro-athletes training methods. A genetically gifted pro-athlete can often succeed in spite of their training, and not necessarily because of their training.

The endless spigot of cash from Steam is something that does enable Valve to take some very experimental leaps (VR, Steam machines, SteamOS, etc.) In my opinion, Valve also has the same shortcomings as google: practically zero customer support, and an un-curated app platform full of shovelware (finding gems on the Steam and the Google Play & Chrome Web Stores can be tricky). But there is still a ton to admire in both…

>the same shortcomings as google: practically zero customer support

As someone who pays for AdWords, I have no problem getting someone on the phone to help when I need it.

Re: Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline

#280

Post by ghaff »

matwood wrote: post #68
Periodic wrote: post #11

So many companies try to emulate how Google works. There are multiple books, hundreds or thousands of articles. People speculate on the perks, the review structure, the hierarchy, the autonomy. However, when other companies try to imitate Google they always fail because they're missing a crucial piece: Billions of dollars in ad revenue Google doesn't work the way it does to be successful. It works that way because it…

Reminds me of Valve's no manager management style: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-04-27/why-there... When you have a lot of money, a lot of things work because you have a lot of money. You often see the same thing with people trying to emulate pro-athletes training methods. A genetically gifted pro-athlete can often succeed in spite of their training, and not necessarily because of their training.

It's very tempting to look at successful companies and identify their traits as key success factors. There was a very popular business book in this vein in the eighties called In Search of Excellence. The problem is that for every success characteristic you can usually find another successful company with a diametrically opposite approach or a company with a similar approach that's going bankrupt.
Post reply on HN