Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment • Hacker News Board

Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment

#51

Post by dylan604 » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 3:54 PM UTC

topkai22 wrote: post #47

dylan604 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And for now Waymo's revenue is estimated to be $5M. While Google's revenue is about $160,000M. Why the decision to write $160,000M vs $160B? Was it so the same as the previous $5M number? Even still, it seems unnatural to me.

I think it’s a good practice to keep the abbreviations the same when talking about in the same context. It makes clear the ratio being talked about.

I'm definitely not in the world of finance, but in day to day conversation, I have to stop to think what one hundred sixty thousand million means. If I hear one hundred sixty billion, then I immediately understand. Even if I had previously heard five million then heard one hundred sixty billion, it is obvious that billion is 1000x a million which clearly makes it a bigger number. This is what I meant by unnatural.

Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment

#52

Post by popup21 » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 3:56 PM UTC

wnoise wrote: post #49

popup21 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> did anything else come along to fill the void? Yep. I'm using ol'faithful: Mozilla Thunderbird

Doesn't satisfy "synced history across any device".

Unnecessary for my use case. I batch my news consumption in a single session.

Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment

#53

Post by sowbug » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #35

endorphone wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market cap of Waymo is $0 because it has no market cap. [edit: note that the parent comment originally spoke to the `market cap' of Waymo before an edit, giving context to this reply] An analyst independently made up a number, likely to justify an outsized Google target number. There have been rumors that Google will seek outside investments in Waymo that might legitimize some valuation, but they haven't. And for…

>And for now Waymo's revenue is estimated to be $5M. While Google's revenue is about $160,000M. Why the decision to write $160,000M vs $160B? Was it so the same as the previous $5M number? Even still, it seems unnatural to me.

As topkai22 said, it's to make the author's comparison easy to understand. But this is a chance to mention that ~50 years ago the UK abandoned its old "billion" terminology, which used to be equivalent to a trillion elsewhere (10^12), and adopted the global definition of "billion" as 10^9. I think they called 10^9 a milliard, but I've never seen it in use. For a long time after the change, you'd see English written for an international audience using a more drawn-out version of large numbers (a "million million" for example) sort of the same way we have metric next to imperial these days.

That's not what's happening here, but it's interesting.

Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment

#54

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 3:58 PM UTC

mantap wrote: post #14

dzdt wrote: post #5

As 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…

That seems way more idealistic somehow. More likely, with a more standard corporate governance Google will begin to rot from within. Apple certainly made more profits under Cook than Jobs, but innovation has slowed to a crawl and he has failed to diversify Apple away from having one product (instead he just added a bunch of accessory products and services). The last thing Google needs is to double down on ads, it tak…

> Google will begin to rot from within

Continue, not begin.

Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment

#55

Post by slowmovintarget » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 4:00 PM UTC

irrational wrote: post #11

The fact that you linked to an amp version of the page, instead of the real link, is deeply disturbing to me. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-12-04/alphab...

Reader mode shows a blank page.

Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment

#56

Post by Merrill » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 4:00 PM UTC

melling wrote: post #6

Google’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...

Not every science project results in a commercially viable product. Remember Bell Labs bubble memories and round lead acid batteries?

So it is probably time to sort through the Alphabet ventures, pick the one or two that have a good chance, invest in those, kill the rest, and start some new ones.

Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment

#57

Post by drawkbox » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 4:11 PM UTC

bayarrhea wrote: post #36

drawkbox wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo is in the value creation phase, business/marketing/analysts may not value it as much but there is a goldmine under it. Waymo may not be a revenue behemoth currently but there is immense value there not only to self-driving but to maps improvement and more. I am not a fan of software patents but they have surpassed Toyota in patents [1] and there are hundreds of patents from Waymo [2]. Everyday in Arizona Waymo…

That’s a long way of saying Waymo isn’t making any money.

Money making products don't start making efficient money day one. Value creation in this area takes time and it is not quick when dealing with physical/driving products. The patents alone will probably be worth more than the effort.

Google is a data/information company and you are completely disregarding the impact Waymo has on that especially for the Maps product.

Waymo is also already a market leader in their space.

Just because it isn't registering big enough revenues to McKinsey level value extraction only MBAs like CEO Sundar Pichai and Wall Street doesn't mean anything. Most of those in that space have no idea how to create value, only extract it.

This type of 'it isn't making money' thinking is similar to how Jeff Bezos at Amazon was attacked for putting all profits back into R&D, or how Elon Musk at Tesla/SpaceX pushes products, or even when Jobs came back to Apple. The bean counters do not understand value creation and do not have product/engineering/creative mindsets.

What product/engineering/creative people do is value creation that create the engines for 'making money', the engine doesn't just pop in, there is a concerted effort of play, production, design, creativity, engineering, crafting and refinement that takes value creation to get that engine running which results in value extraction.

The business/marketing/managers should just stay out of the engine room and just make sure there is enough runway.

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.

Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment

#58

Post by enitihas » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 4:12 PM UTC

abalone wrote: post #34

mantap wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems way more idealistic somehow. More likely, with a more standard corporate governance Google will begin to rot from within. Apple certainly made more profits under Cook than Jobs, but innovation has slowed to a crawl and he has failed to diversify Apple away from having one product (instead he just added a bunch of accessory products and services). The last thing Google needs is to double down on ads, it tak…

> innovation has slowed to a crawl This is so typical of Apple criticism. They did do well with the iPhone and Mac that now any new innovations seem boring in comparison. It’s wrong. The Apple Watch came out under Cook. That is more than an “accessory.” It’s a new platform, new OS variant, etc. It’s dominating smart watches. The AirPods are pretty innovative in terms of the fine grained details that have made them su…

Correct. People think that stuff like iPhone can just be created, if there is enough will and innovation. The iPhone is the most successful consumer electronics product of all time, and might also be the most profitable product on an yearly average basis. Failure to recreate that is not bad. Expecting any company to keep churning out things like the iPhone would be too harsh.

Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment

#59

Post by gogopuppygogo » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #32

mantap wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems way more idealistic somehow. More likely, with a more standard corporate governance Google will begin to rot from within. Apple certainly made more profits under Cook than Jobs, but innovation has slowed to a crawl and he has failed to diversify Apple away from having one product (instead he just added a bunch of accessory products and services). The last thing Google needs is to double down on ads, it tak…

It takes us two minutes to block ads. Everyone on this site is a tiny minority who finds this sort of thing easy. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/

We are starting to put tools like Pi Hole in our homes.

Someday soon we will put AdGuard in as the DNS provider for our parents and other relatives.

The same way Firefox and Google Chrome got adopted.

Advertising has gone from an annoyance to a potential serious threat to our well being from an increasingly surveillance oriented ecosystem.

Pi Hole blocks anywhere from 35 - 50% of all requests in my home. That's an astounding number of requests for an apartment with two residents.

Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment

#60

Post by zepto » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

ftvy wrote: post #42

abalone wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> innovation has slowed to a crawl This is so typical of Apple criticism. They did do well with the iPhone and Mac that now any new innovations seem boring in comparison. It’s wrong. The Apple Watch came out under Cook. That is more than an “accessory.” It’s a new platform, new OS variant, etc. It’s dominating smart watches. The AirPods are pretty innovative in terms of the fine grained details that have made them su…

They've been slacking in development, both software and hardware. Look at the MacBook keyboard problem, or all of the security exploits like pressing Enter numerously to escalate to root privileges. You don't get these kinds of problems when you aren't trying to mass produce cyclical consumption.

They are better on security than anyone else, so if this is ‘slacking’ it has to be contrasted with abject failure elsewhere.