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Google to Acquire Nest

investor.google.com

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Re: Google to Acquire Nest

#581

Post by Houshalter »

Fasebook wrote: post #68
MrZongle2 wrote: post #11

Am I the only one who thought "well, good for the Nest guys" followed by "too bad, it looked like a good product"?

Really? $200 for a predictive thermostat, with a lame excuse to stream energy usage data and proximity data (Nest detects humans) out of your home? Id rather pay $99 to tell health insurance companies how often I exercise, live. You could get the same benefit from a device for $30 of electronics. It's an overpriced gimmick to justify another selling off of your personal data forever in exchange for nothing but some m…

You are paranoid. That data isn't worth anything, certainly not billions of dollars.

Re: Google to Acquire Nest

#582

Post by krzyk »

cloudwalking wrote: post #282
jader201 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to think of a tech acquisition that was favorable, or at the very least not unfavorable for the consumer. It seems like tech (maybe all ) acquisitions almost always favor the buyer and not the consumer. Does anybody have any good examples?

Here are just a few examples: - Keyhole (now Google Maps) - Android Inc. - Motorola Mobility - GrandCentral (now Google Voice) - NeXT - Siri In general, an acquired company initially became successful by bringing value to consumers. When that company is acquired, it gets more resources to bring more value to customers.

Keyhole became Google Earth, not Maps (they were created in-house)

Re: Google to Acquire Nest

#583

Post by ssmoot »

jarek wrote: post #477
ssmoot wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could get the same benefit from a device for $30 of electronics, and however many hours of my free-time I decide to put into such a project. Which would be a lot more than $250 lost, and not a trade I'd be willing to make considering I value my free time with the family a lot more than that. For me this whole thing misses the point though. Saving money is a sort of minimum expectation. The thing that Nest delivers…

> because they were too much trouble and came with 50 page instruction manuals in 5 different languages. Just wondering - is there a problem with different languages?

Nothing. Just thought it captured the sentiment of obtuse manuals that manage to make what seems like a simple task overly complex.

Re: Google to Acquire Nest

#584

Post by stevewillows »

blueskin_ wrote: post #555
bdamm wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, get ready for the Google Home Security System!

Complete with hidden NSA silent remote deactivation codes. "Steve is out of the house" shared publicly on google plus.

Ha. Robbers can already see if I'm out of the house by my instagram feed.

Re: Google to Acquire Nest

#585

Post by bradleyjg »

3327 wrote: post #225
macspoofing wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought "Good for the Nest gu...HOLY CRAP GOOGLE PAID $3.2 BILLION FOR A THERMOSTAT COMPANY"

Actually believe it or not but this is a very very expensive acqu-hire. First engineer on the IPhone team? Father of the IPOD? given the size of the smartphone industry and given what apple has become because of the iphone one could argue that the dude is worth half a billion.

As I understand it the way an aqui-hire works is that the buyer pays enough to buy off the liquidity preferences of the investors with little left over for the founders. But the founders, along with the much of the rest of the staff, gets jobs and golden handcuffs with the acquirer -- which puts their total compensation a few years out somewhere between a 'real' exit and what they would have gotten if they had gone to work for the acquirer in the first place.

In this case, there were only a few investment rounds, all of which were reported to be big 'up' rounds, and the (huge) deal was reported to be all cash. All of which suggests that at least the co-founders, and probably at least several others, are going to be very very rich on day one working at Google. Which in turn is not a circumstance very conducive to effective golden handcuffs.

Re: Google to Acquire Nest

#586

Post by shitlord »

benbojangles wrote: post #473
shitlord wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody, aside from the people on XDA and /r/Android. And maybe a few on HN.

If i'm not mistaken, Google has been dipping it's toes in home automation for some time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_PowerMeter http://mobilesyrup.com/2013/12/17/google-dipping-its-toe-int... To acquire home statistics. Can you imagine the personal data gathering? And the $ value attached to that data? All sweetened with sugar for you to buy the product, connect, and give your data for free. Oh how I would lo…

um, wat? I was commenting regarding ugly OEM themes ruining the paragon of perfection that is AOSP. I think you may have meant to reply to someone else.

Re: Google to Acquire Nest

#588

Post by blueskin_ »

stevewillows wrote: post #584
blueskin_ wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complete with hidden NSA silent remote deactivation codes. "Steve is out of the house" shared publicly on google plus.

Ha. Robbers can already see if I'm out of the house by my instagram feed.

Not mine. I'd never use instagram - but now I can't buy a Nest thermostat, which I used to want.

Re: Google to Acquire Nest

#589

Post by mncolinlee »

teh_klev wrote: post #486
Steko wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube was fine when Google wrote checks and got out of the way. Now Larry and co. have their hands all over it and YT is slowly going to shit... from the G+ spam to the annotation spam and of course you need to sign in to keep them turned off (lol maybe!), to "hey let's make you rebuffer the whole video you just watched" to just horrid performance drops in general to "hey we found a way to make YT comments even wor…

"hey we found a way to make YT comments even worse" Could they get any worse? Seriously does any normal thinking person really participate and contribute comments in that quagmire? I sometimes I thank Google and Yahoo for creating those honey pots for the internet brain-dead to vent their steam and vitriol, keeping them well away from stuff I like to constructively participate in.

I'd love to see Nest integrated with Google+.

"OMG LOL your house is burning down."

Re: Google to Acquire Nest

#590

Post by cweiss »

Houshalter wrote: post #580
benbojangles wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If i'm not mistaken, Google has been dipping it's toes in home automation for some time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_PowerMeter http://mobilesyrup.com/2013/12/17/google-dipping-its-toe-int... To acquire home statistics. Can you imagine the personal data gathering? And the $ value attached to that data? All sweetened with sugar for you to buy the product, connect, and give your data for free. Oh how I would lo…

This is absurd. That data isn't worth anything, let alone to make up for the investment in these things. No one cares that you turn off your lights at 9:43, or that you are at slightly more risk for diabetes. At least not advertisers or the government. And the government isn't paying for this stuff anyways, they just get a court order to take it for free. If you are so afraid of data gathering it's pretty much imposs…

"No one cares that you turn off your lights at 9:43, or that you are at slightly more risk for diabetes. At least not advertisers..."

Seriously? Lifestyle information is a gold mine for advertisers. If someone is diabetic, they need drugs, so I'm sure going to serve up more pharmaceutical ads (and those pay very well). If they're running the heater, they're almost certainly in the market for a jacket, blanket, or similar. Suddenly using "auto away" for stretches at a time? I bet they're traveling for work, and could use some luggage or a vacation to throw mileage points at.

Waay more profitable than just throwing random crap out there and seeing what sticks.

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