Google Will Eat Itself (2005) • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

#51

Post by ChuckMcM » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 4:49 PM UTC

Interesting, the page info is out of date (if it was ever a real thing) from their "how much do we own"

   How much do "we" own Google

   Google Shares owned by GWEI: 819
   Amount of USD: 405.413,19
   Adsense-Clicks: 1.556.361
   Adsense-Page Impressions: 37.538
   Adsense-CTR: 2,41%

   Google Ownership Counter
     202.345.117 Years until GWEI fully owns Google.

   Google Share Price*
     Current Google Share Price : 495.01 USD
     Symbol: "GOOG"

Current price is over $1,400 so either they have over a million dollars of Google stock or this experiment has stopped?

There is an interesting question here of how much money is someone willing to let "sit there" which is growing slowly vs taking it and doing something with it.

Re: Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

#52

Post by notahacker » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

Bjorkbat wrote: post #48

whack wrote: post #39

Unpopular opinion but this sounds like a half baked idea that will never amount to anything. Imagine some other equally silly parallels: We generate money by selling iOS apps on a network of hidden developers. With this money we automatically buy Apple shares. We buy Apple via their own app store! Apple eats itself - but in the end "we" own it! We generate money by selling goods on Amazon on a network of hidden affil…

I don't think it's intended to actually subvert Google. It's simply interesting. It's one thing to speculate on taking over a company through unconventional means, but gradually chipping away at a company using the very thing that powers it is pretty interesting. It's hard to imagine doing that in 2005, even harder to imagine doing it now. Doesn't help that online ads have a certain arcane quality about them. It's cr…

> gradually chipping away at a company using the very thing that powers it is pretty interesting. It's hard to imagine doing that in 2005, even harder to imagine doing it now.

Most tech companies have pretty good defences against that sort of thing. High gross margins mean when your involvement increases sales on their platform, their P&L figures look a lot better. High P/E ratios mean every time their P&L figures look unexpectedly better, the value of all the stock you haven't bought jumps by a lot more.

Then again if you yourself are a fashionable web company, maybe it's different, especially if you buy more shares in the platform company you're dependent on by selling off your own stock. Wonder how much of Facebook Zynga could have bought when it was supplying 19% of Facebook's revenue....

Re: Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

#53

Post by mamon » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 6:12 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #38

pritambarhate wrote: post #14

As per Wikipedia[1]: >> Page and Brin remain co-founders, employees, board members, and controlling shareholders of Alphabet Inc. Forbes article referenced by Wikipedia:[2] >> At Alphabet’s annual meeting in June, multiple shareholders criticized the fact that Page did not show up given that he and Brin have more than 50% of the company’s voting power, thanks to Alphabet’s multi-class stock structure. That structure…

Is lack of attendance something that happens regularly? Can control ever be wrested from majority voting power owners? Page and Brin, Zuckerberg, et al.?

Page and Brin are not married to each other, as far as I know (which would make the shares their common property). You can always try to drive a wedge between them, have one of them turn on the other. With Zuckerberg, no, no chance.

Re: Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

#54

Post by MikeHolman » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 6:16 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #51

Interesting, the page info is out of date (if it was ever a real thing) from their "how much do we own" How much do "we" own Google Google Shares owned by GWEI: 819 Amount of USD: 405.413,19 Adsense-Clicks: 1.556.361 Adsense-Page Impressions: 37.538 Adsense-CTR: 2,41% Google Ownership Counter 202.345.117 Years until GWEI fully owns Google. Google Share Price* Current Google Share Price : 495.01 USD Symbol: "GOOG" Cur…

I think even more, since there was a stock split since then (share price is dated at 2005).

Re: Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

#55

Post by bencollier49 » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 6:35 PM UTC

A version of this that might actually work would involve investing dividends in additional ad serving properties.

Re: Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

#56

Post by simonebrunozzi » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 6:36 PM UTC

> 202.345.117 Years until GWEI fully owns Google.

Clearly a European, because of the use of "." instead of "," for thousand separators.

It almost looked like an IPv4 address.

Well, neat idea. Only ~200M years to go. Good luck!

Re: Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

#57

Post by nradov » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 6:39 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #38

pritambarhate wrote: post #14

As per Wikipedia[1]: >> Page and Brin remain co-founders, employees, board members, and controlling shareholders of Alphabet Inc. Forbes article referenced by Wikipedia:[2] >> At Alphabet’s annual meeting in June, multiple shareholders criticized the fact that Page did not show up given that he and Brin have more than 50% of the company’s voting power, thanks to Alphabet’s multi-class stock structure. That structure…

Is lack of attendance something that happens regularly? Can control ever be wrested from majority voting power owners? Page and Brin, Zuckerberg, et al.?

They aren't immortal. At some point others will own the shares.

Re: Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

#58

Post by ChuckMcM » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 6:42 PM UTC

MikeHolman wrote: post #54

ChuckMcM wrote: post #51

Interesting, the page info is out of date (if it was ever a real thing) from their "how much do we own" How much do "we" own Google Google Shares owned by GWEI: 819 Amount of USD: 405.413,19 Adsense-Clicks: 1.556.361 Adsense-Page Impressions: 37.538 Adsense-CTR: 2,41% Google Ownership Counter 202.345.117 Years until GWEI fully owns Google. Google Share Price* Current Google Share Price : 495.01 USD Symbol: "GOOG" Cur…

I think even more, since there was a stock split since then (share price is dated at 2005).

Wow, that would be over 2.5M$ so yeah. Interesting question indeed.

Re: Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

#59

Post by Lammy » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 6:51 PM UTC

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #56

> 202.345.117 Years until GWEI fully owns Google. Clearly a European, because of the use of "." instead of "," for thousand separators. It almost looked like an IPv4 address. Well, neat idea. Only ~200M years to go. Good luck!

And because of the name :p

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_Will_Eat_Itself

Re: Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

#60

Post by shadowgovt » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 7:07 PM UTC

whack wrote: post #39

Unpopular opinion but this sounds like a half baked idea that will never amount to anything. Imagine some other equally silly parallels: We generate money by selling iOS apps on a network of hidden developers. With this money we automatically buy Apple shares. We buy Apple via their own app store! Apple eats itself - but in the end "we" own it! We generate money by selling goods on Amazon on a network of hidden affil…

It completely ignores the fact that a controlling interest in the company is held in shares that are, in the short-term, practically unbuyable (i.e. Larry and Sergey Brin aren't in the market to sell, period).