Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]

#31

Post by bduerst » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

kyrra wrote: post #3

easton wrote: post #2

> In January 2021, we completed an assessment of the useful lives of our servers and network equipment and adjusted the estimated useful life of our servers from three years to four years Does anyone know what the observation was here that made this possible? Have Google's internal workloads not grown in size as quickly as they thought, or is this a "Moore's law is slowing down" thing?

Googler, opinions are my own. I know nothing about this. I wonder if this was Google's response to the chip shortage? Maybe the cost/benefit (and just sheer inability to get certain parts) made them hold on to hardware for longer.

Could also be the fact that Google has built a ton of new data centers in the last two years. Newer hardware, infra, utilization, etc. could lead to better quality/lifespans.

Re: Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]

#32

Post by whimsicalism » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #14

dekhn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a part of Chaos Monkey where the author describes driving past Google on a weekend and seeing empty parking lots while Facebook's were full (this was during Google Plus). He concluded that Google no longer had a fire in the belly and facebook was going to overcome it, not just in social mindshare, but ad revenue. Conditions changed.

The dirty secret of tech is that markets matter more than effort or smarts. If you have product/market fit and a decent technological lead in a market that is large and growing, you will do better than a company that does not have PMF or a good market, regardless of how hard you work. (This explains so much about Oracle.) Social media mentions are probably a better sign of how well you'll do than full parking lots. I…

> I'd bet that Google & Facebook's current run-up is largely driven by inflation and higher ad prices.

What does this mean? The dollar didn't inflate 68%.

If you mean that companies are investing more capital into advertising because capital markets are looser, sure, but why is that a bad thing again?

Re: Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]

#33

Post by hogFeast » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 9:18 PM UTC

slo_news wrote: post #18

easton wrote: post #2

> In January 2021, we completed an assessment of the useful lives of our servers and network equipment and adjusted the estimated useful life of our servers from three years to four years Does anyone know what the observation was here that made this possible? Have Google's internal workloads not grown in size as quickly as they thought, or is this a "Moore's law is slowing down" thing?

While I'm unsure of the the reason the computers are lasting longer, I would bet this observation was originally triggered from the public company accounting firm that audits Alphabet's financials. The accounting firm likely asked Alphabet to prove out why they used a 3 year estimate and found out 4 years was more accurate (FYI 3 years is a standard useful life for computers for most companies - sometimes even shorte…

It doesn't work this way.

If Alphabet wanted to prove they lasted three years, they would have found a way to prove it. Auditors don't go around challenging on things like this. In particular, they don't go around challenging companies on depreciation because that is a key lever that management can pull if they need to hit numbers.

It is very difficult to discern exactly why they will have done this but the functional answer is: they have done this because they needed earnings to increase. In this case, it looks like the difference between a 15% and a 20% beat (I believe the change was made in January, I think they had quite a big beat in that quarter after some flattish momentum, middle of the year very strong anyway).

Re: Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]

#34

Post by bsedlm » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 9:18 PM UTC

belval wrote: post #4

Net income up 68%, that's terrifying high for a company that size. Good job everyone at Alphabet/Google.

what's really scary is that some of that profitability comes straight from governments "purchasing" capabilities such as recently the exposed deal https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10063665/Government...

Re: Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]

#35

Post by mrep » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 9:18 PM UTC

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #29

mrep wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you getting your $2T number from?

Looking at https://www.investopedia.com/government-stimulus-efforts-to-... and roughly guesstimating $1.5T from direct loans / PPP and additional $0.5T from the knock off stimulus and inflation effects.

That's money given to people and businesses. Secondary effects could go into the stock market but not directly and I definitely would not call that dumping into the stock market considering most was probably used to keep business and people afloat.

Re: Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]

#36

Post by bduerst » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 9:18 PM UTC

gitfan86 wrote: post #30

nostrademons wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dirty secret of tech is that markets matter more than effort or smarts. If you have product/market fit and a decent technological lead in a market that is large and growing, you will do better than a company that does not have PMF or a good market, regardless of how hard you work. (This explains so much about Oracle.) Social media mentions are probably a better sign of how well you'll do than full parking lots. I…

markets and moats matter. Anyone can get revenue selling tomatoes, the problem with tomato farming is that there is no moat, you will not be able to sell at a price much higher than the next farmer down the street. If there were 100 good search engines the price for advertising would be 90% lower

>If there were 100 good search engines the price for advertising would be 90% lower

Would it really be that much though?

I thought search ads were auctions - i.e. competition for impressions/clicks directly correlates to the price of advertising.

If you have search users distributed across 100 platforms, the competition for impressions/clicks is going to be super low on all platforms, but you'd have to advertise on 100 platforms to get the same level of engagement, adding it all back up but with 100 middle men this time.

Re: Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]

#37

Post by purple_ferret » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 9:19 PM UTC

I like to think I'm doing my part as a sharehholder.

Every so often I'll google something like Criminal Defense Attorney, send money, or file taxes and click on the highest ads.

Re: Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]

#38

Post by sidibe » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

bsedlm wrote: post #34

belval wrote: post #4

Net income up 68%, that's terrifying high for a company that size. Good job everyone at Alphabet/Google.

what's really scary is that some of that profitability comes straight from governments "purchasing" capabilities such as recently the exposed deal https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10063665/Government...

Don't see anything in there about government paying

Re: Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]

#39

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

bsedlm wrote: post #34

belval wrote: post #4

Net income up 68%, that's terrifying high for a company that size. Good job everyone at Alphabet/Google.

what's really scary is that some of that profitability comes straight from governments "purchasing" capabilities such as recently the exposed deal https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10063665/Government...

[deleted]

Re: Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]

#40

Post by jsnell » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

gitfan86 wrote: post #30

nostrademons wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dirty secret of tech is that markets matter more than effort or smarts. If you have product/market fit and a decent technological lead in a market that is large and growing, you will do better than a company that does not have PMF or a good market, regardless of how hard you work. (This explains so much about Oracle.) Social media mentions are probably a better sign of how well you'll do than full parking lots. I…

markets and moats matter. Anyone can get revenue selling tomatoes, the problem with tomato farming is that there is no moat, you will not be able to sell at a price much higher than the next farmer down the street. If there were 100 good search engines the price for advertising would be 90% lower

> If there were 100 good search engines the price for advertising would be 90% lower

Why do you think that? The revenue is determined by the number of searches showing ads, the click-through rate, and the cost per click. The total across all companies would clearly not change for the first two metrics. Would the cost per click change? Given it's determined by an auction, I don't see how it could change. If you have an incentive to bid $1 on an ad on a single site with 100x traffic, you'd be equally willing to bid $1 on each of 100 separate sites with 1x traffic.