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

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

#291

Post by tajen »

skizm wrote: post #76

I always wondered if Google just fired all their engineers except a few top guys, and focused on their core money making products like search / ads / etc. and tried to stay as lean as possible (lean being a relative term), how much profit they could make.

I concur. But then I tried to classify Google projects in 3 categories and find for "obviously useless things that only exist so engineers can have fun", and I didn't find so many obvious things:

- Obviously productive ones: Gmail, Google Analytics, Android, Android TV, Maps, Youtube, OpenSocial, Chrome, because they all participate to "universally trackable users",

- Skeptical projects: Fiber, Flights, Google Scholar, TensorFlow, Chrome OS, GDrive, GApps for Business,

- Pet projects that may be fun but don't seem to serve as leverage: GCE (yes, their cloud solution), Google+, Go, Google Earth, Google Play/Music, Google Wallet, Google Glass, GGroups, GFinance, GTranslate, Google Fonts, Google Classroom, Inbox, Wave, Hangouts, Google News, Google Currents, Google Keep, Google Now, Wave...

Therefore... If they wanted to stay as lean as possible, would they have come up with the right list straight away? What makes products "obviously" part of the first list?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products

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

#292

Post by Black-Plaid »

paulcole wrote: post #279
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…

>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.

I imagine that most people don't realize they are not Google customers. If you have paid Google money, then you are a customer. People using Google's 'free' services are not. Only customers will get good support.

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

#294

Post by T2_t2 »

mahyarm wrote: post #7
focusgroup0 wrote: post #3

Xoogler here. About a week after joining, and having partaken of the food, massages, meditation rooms, fitness centers, shuttle bus, sports facility, arcade, juice bar, tech stops, shwag etc. - I remember thinking to myself "whatever we do here must be ridiculously lucrative". There weren't signs of obvious waste (at least in my org.), and coming from other corporate gigs where you had to pay for coffee it really ope…

A lot of that stuff although is cheaper for the corporation to provide than for the employee to pay for themselves in money and time. The corp has a tax advantage and a bulk purchase advantage. Not having a payment infra probably adds a little bit of efficiency too.

As well as a diversity / community aspect. For every chef, barista, waitress, cleaner etc they hire, there is a chance to alter the hiring clique from (hyperbole) rich, snotty nosed, Ivy leaguers to include people with different backgrounds.

I know that may seem like a small thing, but providing jobs for the less educated off sets at least some of the problems these companies face with gentrification, gender and racial diversity etc.

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

#295

Post by T2_t2 »

digi_owl wrote: post #55
zigzigzag wrote: post #26

The robotics effort sounds like an absolute disaster. How shareholders haven't been demanding answers there is beyond me. Acquiring 11 companies to, apparently, satisfy Rubin's obsession with robots (it's named Android for a reason) and then trying to shut them all down or flog them off ... but nobody wants them? Yikes. How did they get so starry-eyed about Rubin that keeping him (also failed) was apparently worth su…

This bring to mind how Michael Dell decided to take the namesake company private so that it could focus on long term projects. Similarly i can't shake the feel that the handset division of Nokia, never mind similar efforts at HP, got sunk because of board room having blinders for all but the quarterly earnings report.

Actually, he did that because he felt the public price was undercooked, and there was more value in the company people weren't seeing.

http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-06-01/michael-de... is a great read on that.

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

#296

Post by mathattack »

jamez1 wrote: post #278
mathattack wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes - very much so. This happens a lot. Frequently when you optimize on a metric, the correlations go away.

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

#297

Post by Roritharr »

throwaway729 wrote: post #69
inopinatus wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most pointed quote in the article is “No one wants to face the reality that this is an advertising company with a bunch of hobbies.” But without search, without Gmail, without Chrome, without Android, without the moonshots and all the "hobbies" Google's brand would wither, and its access to data at massive scale would be crippled, and its access to eyeballs would be curtailed, and the talent would walk. Others ha…

> Google's dominance in advertising couldn't occur without the product mix. This is absolutely accurate. Google is what it is because google.com is the best search engine in the world and because GMail is the best web-based mail client -- free or otherwise.

I'd take Zimbra over Gmail any day.

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

#298

Post by dekhn »

serge2k wrote: post #206
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…

> Chrome was created to be a standards based browser Then why not give money to firefox? Why not start contributing more? instead they built their own, integrated it with google stuff, and pushed it heavily for years and years.

Google did give money to firefox. Lots and lots of it.

https://www.cnet.com/news/firefox-maker-mozilla-we-dont-need...

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

#299

Post by monksy »

user5994461 wrote: post #128
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.

I think you and the parent commenter are missing a critical points. These companies were successful because of what they were, and they continue to be successful because of what they are. It is a virtuous circle living on money, people, management and many more characteristics that go together.

I would agree with that. They didn't go in trying to make a billion. They made a product(s) that are worth billions.

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

#300

Post by gniv »

mojuba wrote: post #260
guycook wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know exactly what you mean. "Half" "of" "my" "searches" "look" "like" "this" "these" "days". I can understand throwing out one of many keywords when I'm down on page 6, but when I search with only 4 terms and the very first result has 2 words s̶t̶r̶u̶c̶k̶ o̶u̶t̶ I start to wonder who exactly this search box is for.

True, and one other thing I've noticed is e.g. "Half of my searches" can bring say 200,000 results, but "Half of my" yields 50,000. A few other weird things that's been there for years and nobody seems to care. As long as consumer-level searches work and ads are clickable, Google's clock is ticking.

I wouldn't put too much stock on those numbers. They are probably statistical estimates, not actual counts.
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