Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment
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Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment
#2[deleted]
Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment
#3First the Reader, now the Alphabet.
Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment
#4If you're having trouble reading it: https://outline.com/pGLZ6U
Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment
#5As usual, I like Matt Levine's take. [1]
Page and Brin ran Alphabet as a highly funded system of moonshot programs with near-infinite runway to make profits, which is unusual or unique. Basically it only worked that way because Page and Brin were idealistic visionary gazillionaires who were bored of thinking about the somewhat dirty business of selling targetted ads. With a more standard corporate governance under a common CEO with the google ad business, the expectation is a more standard corporate focus on making profits from its ventures in some defined timeline.
But read Levine's version; it has detail and humor and insight I can't convey in a summary!
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-12-04/alphab...
Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment
#6Google’s attempt to be a modern day Bell Labs was the one thing that set them apart.
Make a lot of money in advertising and spend some of it to invent the future.
Without the second part, the entire company changes.
We need another company to take the mantle:
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/opinion/sunday/innovation...
Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment
#7Any investor in Alphabet for the long term would hope this isn't the case. It also doesn't make sense at a time when some of their moonshots are looking as though they could pay off. (Eg. Waymo)
That said, it makes sense from the Page/Brin perspective, perhaps. It's a lot more difficult to 10x a company that's already worth $Y billion. Perhaps better to start the ventures separately in a way that is more exciting to investors.
Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment
#8sounds like a good time for a "traitorous 8" group from google's vast AI teams to jump out of advertising and start monetizing their plans.
Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment
#9Google’s attempt to be a modern day Bell Labs was the one thing that set them apart. Make a lot of money in advertising and spend some of it to invent the future. Without the second part, the entire company changes. We need another company to take the mantle: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/opinion/sunday/innovation...
Looks like the product/engineering/creative focused time of Google is giving way to the metric/marketing/MBA/McKinsey people for a fully pedal to the metal push into their Ballmer phase.
When will technology/product/engineering/creative companies learn that the value creation is more important than the value extraction? With value creation there is always the ability to value extract. With value extraction the focus, and little research and development or innovative value creation, eventually it stagnates and sputters.
The product before the sales/marketing is key. A product of value can always be sold or marketed. You can't sell/market your way to a product.
As a developer, and investor, in Google this concerns me the move away from Alphabet, moonshots and research and development. The open mode is needed just like the closed mode [1]. The open mode is where value is realized, the closed mode is where it is produced [1]. Value is created in a state of play or creativity, this is usually the first thing to go in these phase changes at a company.
This happens at every company that creates immense value, eventually the research and development is hard to quantify the value so they cut and cut like Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree, eventually it is just a stump and all the grace and built up value is tapped.
Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment
#10>Placing the head of Google, which contributes more than 99% of Alphabet’s sales, at the helm of it could call into question the entire purpose of Alphabet
I think this gives a false impression of the value of the non Google bits of Alphabet
Currently the market cap of Alphabet is $924bn and "Waymo is worth about $105 billion" (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-27/waymo-val...) which would make that 11% of the valuation and probably other bits of other bets are worth something too.