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Alphabet overtakes Apple to become most cash-rich company

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Re: Alphabet overtakes Apple to become most cash-rich company

#131

Post by jjeaff »

winter_blue wrote: post #56
olde_fortran wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dividends at taxed at income tax rates

In the U.S., if you've held the stock for at least one year, its dividends are taxed at a very favorable long-term capital gains rate. Stock held for less than a year is however taxed like regular income.

It's not that favorable if all the corporate cash is stored overseas in low tax holding countries.

The corporation will have to repatriate the money and pay corporate income tax on it before they give you your dividends.

Alternatively, they could just grow that hoard of cash and let your stock appreciate after which you can sell a few shares and get capital gains rates on capital that didn't have to be double taxed.

Re: Alphabet overtakes Apple to become most cash-rich company

#132

Post by dmix »

scarface74 wrote: post #120
dmix wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not buy some companies and get some proper entrepreneurs back into the mix of management? I can't remember any recent major Google acquisitions. No mega company really has to have internal innovation. And I doubt the pretend internal startups ala skunkswork with an unlimited budget and extensive runways are a real replacement for innovation popping out of the marketplace among the bodies of a hundred other failed…

Why not buy some companies and get some proper entrepreneurs back into the mix of management? I can't remember any recent major Google acquisitions. With all of the failed and failing products from Google acquisitions, is that really a great idea?

Probably not for the product's consumers, no.

Re: Alphabet overtakes Apple to become most cash-rich company

#133

Post by bena »

buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #106
bena wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His motive is fair game when we're discussing his credibility as a source or information.

Of course you can discuss his motive. But it is a logical fallacy to use his motive to disprove his statement. The person I responded to said that since he showed motive, his ad hom attack wasn’t fallacious. If someone without his proposed motives had made the same statement, the statement wouldn’t be more or less true.

They're using the fact that he said it as a point in favor of it being true.

However Thiel has a vested interest in making Google look worse. They're a competitor.

He wants to say that Google is no longer innovating and then uses a thin excuse to validate his claim. And we're supposed to trust his reasoning. But all he's really done is back-fitted a reason to his conclusion. He wants to believe that Google is no longer innovating, so he picked something Google is already doing and claims that that is evidence.

The first step would be to define "innovation" in a way all relevant parties can agree upon. Then we need to agree on the things Google has done that would qualify as innovation. Then we can plot how much innovation they've done then compared to now.

Re: Alphabet overtakes Apple to become most cash-rich company

#134

Post by Bluestrike2 »

skybrian wrote: post #58
wpasc wrote: post #4

This reminds me of a talk I watched with Peter Thiel and Eric Schmidt. I know Thiel is controversial, but he was well-meaningly digging at Google for running out of ideas and no longer innovating. The criticism was something like "You have so much cash on hand but no ideas to invest in. However, you can't pay a dividend because the second you do, you're admitting you've run out of ideas and are no longer innovating".…

This argument relies on a fallacy of binary thinking: either you have ideas or you don't. It's perfectly fine to say that you have lots of investment ideas, but they don't add up to needing $100 billion to implement them. Especially when you are earning more cash every quarter.

There are opportunity costs and risks associated with holding onto excess cash. Continuing to hold that cash sort of implies at least some difficulties in making a decision on what to do with it. Doing nothing, or just sticking the cash in short-term securities, has a cost of its own. That's not the same as thinking the company has no ideas, of course. But for companies like Apple and Google, those ideas often aren't necessarily capital intensive ones--at least relative to the size of their cash holdings--and when they're successful, can wind up exacerbating the problem by generating...more cash.

Re: Alphabet overtakes Apple to become most cash-rich company

#135

Post by jartelt »

wpasc wrote: post #4

This reminds me of a talk I watched with Peter Thiel and Eric Schmidt. I know Thiel is controversial, but he was well-meaningly digging at Google for running out of ideas and no longer innovating. The criticism was something like "You have so much cash on hand but no ideas to invest in. However, you can't pay a dividend because the second you do, you're admitting you've run out of ideas and are no longer innovating".…

They already get a decent amount of flak for investing a lot of money in their Other Bets. Imagine how much shareholder animus there would be if they started investing 10s of billions more?

Re: Alphabet overtakes Apple to become most cash-rich company

#136

Post by EventH- »

skybrian wrote: post #58
wpasc wrote: post #4

This reminds me of a talk I watched with Peter Thiel and Eric Schmidt. I know Thiel is controversial, but he was well-meaningly digging at Google for running out of ideas and no longer innovating. The criticism was something like "You have so much cash on hand but no ideas to invest in. However, you can't pay a dividend because the second you do, you're admitting you've run out of ideas and are no longer innovating".…

This argument relies on a fallacy of binary thinking: either you have ideas or you don't. It's perfectly fine to say that you have lots of investment ideas, but they don't add up to needing $100 billion to implement them. Especially when you are earning more cash every quarter.

This deftly misses Theil's point and the supposed fallacy is wholly irrelevant. Alphabet's success came off the back of world-changing innovation; now their best offering is the stagnant status quo, yet they position themselves as creatives building the future.

Re: Alphabet overtakes Apple to become most cash-rich company

#137

Post by tus88 »

wpasc wrote: post #4

This reminds me of a talk I watched with Peter Thiel and Eric Schmidt. I know Thiel is controversial, but he was well-meaningly digging at Google for running out of ideas and no longer innovating. The criticism was something like "You have so much cash on hand but no ideas to invest in. However, you can't pay a dividend because the second you do, you're admitting you've run out of ideas and are no longer innovating".…

How about just spending a few tens of thousands making Gmail fast again?

Re: Alphabet overtakes Apple to become most cash-rich company

#138

Post by drusepth »

tus88 wrote: post #137
wpasc wrote: post #4

This reminds me of a talk I watched with Peter Thiel and Eric Schmidt. I know Thiel is controversial, but he was well-meaningly digging at Google for running out of ideas and no longer innovating. The criticism was something like "You have so much cash on hand but no ideas to invest in. However, you can't pay a dividend because the second you do, you're admitting you've run out of ideas and are no longer innovating".…

How about just spending a few tens of thousands making Gmail fast again?

What makes you think that'd only cost tens of thousands?

Re: Alphabet overtakes Apple to become most cash-rich company

#139

Post by [deleted] »

bena wrote: post #133
buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you can discuss his motive. But it is a logical fallacy to use his motive to disprove his statement. The person I responded to said that since he showed motive, his ad hom attack wasn’t fallacious. If someone without his proposed motives had made the same statement, the statement wouldn’t be more or less true.

They're using the fact that he said it as a point in favor of it being true. However Thiel has a vested interest in making Google look worse. They're a competitor. He wants to say that Google is no longer innovating and then uses a thin excuse to validate his claim. And we're supposed to trust his reasoning. But all he's really done is back-fitted a reason to his conclusion. He wants to believe that Google is no long…

[deleted]

Re: Alphabet overtakes Apple to become most cash-rich company

#140

Post by xchaotic »

mrep wrote: post #107
MegaButts wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think Stadia is viable considering the lag? It's obviously worthless for competitive or even serious gamers. I am skeptical it will be enticing for casual gamers.

I played 30 hours of assassins creed on stadia during the beta and I didn't notice any lag, so yes.

Single player so I assume it streams fine. With multiplayer and the other side deliberately cheating it is not going to work. Can’t beat physics
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