Should Google just become a VC fund?

#1

Post by likecarter » Sat, May 22, 2021, 7:53 PM UTC

Should Google just become a VC fund?
carter.sprigings.com

Re: Should Google just become a VC fund?

#2

Post by mraza007 » Sat, May 22, 2021, 8:11 PM UTC

Very interesting points made here.

Those startups can thrive independently under Google

Re: Should Google just become a VC fund?

#3

Post by 9wzYQbTYsAIc » Sat, May 22, 2021, 8:41 PM UTC

Google’s parent company is still Alphabet, right? Wasn’t Alphabet created to be a pseudo-VC fund for all of the non-core research and development projects that Google had going on?

Re: Should Google just become a VC fund?

#4

Post by H8crilA » Sat, May 22, 2021, 8:43 PM UTC

> While the information isn’t public, we can safely assume that less than 5%, or 2,954 engineers, work directly or indirectly on Google Ads (Google Search, Youtube, etc.).

Where does this assumption come from? I don't think this is even remotely close to the truth.

Re: Should Google just become a VC fund?

#5

Post by strstr » Sat, May 22, 2021, 8:43 PM UTC

Isn't this Google Ventures? (https://www.gv.com/)

Re: Should Google just become a VC fund?

#6

Post by cortesoft » Sat, May 22, 2021, 8:48 PM UTC

This makes some big assumptions. One, that all the engineers both want and have the skill set to run a startup. Two, that those engineers have that many promising ideas for startups.

Re: Should Google just become a VC fund?

#7

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg » Sat, May 22, 2021, 8:49 PM UTC

H8crilA wrote: post #4

> While the information isn’t public, we can safely assume that less than 5%, or 2,954 engineers, work directly or indirectly on Google Ads (Google Search, Youtube, etc.). Where does this assumption come from? I don't think this is even remotely close to the truth.

Yeah I mean there are probably a thousand people working explicitly and directly on web search alone, not to mention all the auxiliary work that goes into supporting websearch. This assumption is very incorrect.

Re: Should Google just become a VC fund?

#8

Post by Abhinav2000 » Sat, May 22, 2021, 8:50 PM UTC

Google Ads is the monetisation of all of the other services Google offers. Everything is a funnel of information to Google's Ad Analytics

Re: Should Google just become a VC fund?

#9

Post by gregsadetsky » Sat, May 22, 2021, 8:53 PM UTC

"Alphabet generated almost $183 billion in revenue. Of that, 147B — over 80% — came from Google’s ads business"

So, the other 20% non-ad revenue (GCP? Google Workspace? Google Play subscriptions?) represents 36.6B

The article however argues that the 6 billion dollar startups would generate 28.5B in value -- so, less than the (supposedly) 95% of non-ad engineers generate right now..?

And this would also mean that there would be nobody left to run and maintain Search, Android, YouTube, Gmail, Maps, Chrome, Drive, GCP, Google's entire infrasructure, ...?

Re: Should Google just become a VC fund?

#10

Post by stingraycharles » Sat, May 22, 2021, 9:04 PM UTC

H8crilA wrote: post #4

> While the information isn’t public, we can safely assume that less than 5%, or 2,954 engineers, work directly or indirectly on Google Ads (Google Search, Youtube, etc.). Where does this assumption come from? I don't think this is even remotely close to the truth.

Yeah it’s a hilariously incorrect article. Even if it were 5% engineers, the article presents it as if all the non-engineers are excess weight that don’t do anything useful.