Alphabet Loses $859M on 'Moonshots' in 2Q 2016 • Hacker News Board

Re: Alphabet Loses $859M on 'Moonshots' in 2Q 2016

#141

Post by stevetursi » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 1:27 PM UTC

whack wrote: post #120

zaroth wrote: post #33

I don't think it's right to equate R&D spending with "losses". Google makes a profit, not a loss, so technically it does not have losses. It has expenses, and among those, investments in future technology. If all Google could do with their cash flow was pay a dividend, that would be very sad, and it would call for a much lower P/E ratio. This article completely misstates the facts. Perhaps the way they break out thei…

Genuine question: Has Google ever achieved financial success with a moonshot project? Google Glass seems to have come closest to becoming an actual product, but it eventually crashed and burned as well. The self-driving car was a great technological success, but I really wonder how Google plans to monetize it. Years ago, when Google was the only major company doing self-driving-cars, there was a lot of buzz and poten…

From a different nytimes Article this week:

'Arguably the biggest success, Google Brain, is the one people know the least about. It was an artificial intelligence effort that was spun back into core Google in 2012 and is now embedded in products like voice search and the Google Photos app, in which users can search their albums for images like “dogs” or “mountains.”'

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/24/technology/they-promised-u...

Re: Alphabet Loses $859M on 'Moonshots' in 2Q 2016

#142

Post by eli » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 1:27 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #136

corobo wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe Android was (technically at least) a moonshot Page writes: “Having exceeded even the crazy ambitious goals we dreamed of for Android—and with a really strong leadership team in place—Andy’s decided it’s time to hand over the reins and start a new chapter at Google. Andy, more moonshots please!” [1] The "more moonshots" implies that Android was itself a moonshot. Whether it was declared one at the time Andro…

I think the term "moonshot" is reserved for exploring new technical frontiers. Android is "just" another OS.

Easy to say that now. They started developing it before the iPhone came out, right?

Re: Alphabet Loses $859M on 'Moonshots' in 2Q 2016

#143

Post by gtk40 » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 1:29 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #131

brador wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call the iPhone a moonshot, more an extreme iteration. This was around before the iPhone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPAQ (HP IPAQ) Combine that with a phone and update the software and make it designed and you have an iphone.

The iPhone went without keyboard and put all real estate towards the touch screen. That was a big change back then.

There were other no-keyboard all touchscreen devices though. The Nokia N770 (2005-2006), the PalmPilot and later iterations (starting 1997), various HTC smartphones and Pocket PCs before 2007, and so on.

Re: Alphabet Loses $859M on 'Moonshots' in 2Q 2016

#144

Post by burkaman » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 1:32 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #142

amelius wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the term "moonshot" is reserved for exploring new technical frontiers. Android is "just" another OS.

Easy to say that now. They started developing it before the iPhone came out, right?

Yeah, but Andy Rubin and Android were a separate company that Google bought. They sort of acquired someone else's moonshot.

Re: Alphabet Loses $859M on 'Moonshots' in 2Q 2016

#145

Post by amelius » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 1:37 PM UTC

burkaman wrote: post #144

eli wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy to say that now. They started developing it before the iPhone came out, right?

Yeah, but Andy Rubin and Android were a separate company that Google bought. They sort of acquired someone else's moonshot.

Also, there was Symbian OS, and probably a bunch of others. So not even someone else's moonshot.

Imho, Android was more about exploring a new business strategy for Google.

Re: Alphabet Loses $859M on 'Moonshots' in 2Q 2016

#146

Post by KKKKkkkk1 » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 1:37 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #33

I don't think it's right to equate R&D spending with "losses". Google makes a profit, not a loss, so technically it does not have losses. It has expenses, and among those, investments in future technology. If all Google could do with their cash flow was pay a dividend, that would be very sad, and it would call for a much lower P/E ratio. This article completely misstates the facts. Perhaps the way they break out thei…

Google's core business (search-powered ads) is at this point a cash cow that does not require R&D investment at a $1B/pa level, so it's not fair to label these as investments either. That was the whole reason behind the creation of Alphabet - now investors can see that Google is acting as a VC that's being powered by its ad earnings, and they can judge how successful Google is as a VC. (So far, not very successful.)

Re: Alphabet Loses $859M on 'Moonshots' in 2Q 2016

#147

Post by Vexs » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 1:39 PM UTC

redthrowaway wrote: post #81

jahnu wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They mastered search. They mastered mapping.

Search has stagnated. Google has gotten scarily good at anticipating what I want to know, but conspicuously bad at answering hard questions. There's tons of room for improvement. Similarly, Google Maps has added features that make it a better map, and it's a great place to find what time a store closes and what their phone number is. But it's been essentially the same service, with iterative improvements, for years.…

I think the biggest issue with google right now is they have so many simple answers available. If I google some even slightly in depth problem, I'm bombarded with quarter explanations from "popular" sites like howtogeek, cnet wikihow, etc, which as far as I remember have never helped me one bit.

They seem to rely too much on site popularity, and not enough about quality of result, and god help you if you try to google a higher-level math problem.

Re: Alphabet Loses $859M on 'Moonshots' in 2Q 2016

#148

Post by rm_-rf_slash » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 1:39 PM UTC

nibs wrote: post #140

Mtinie wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide an example? I would not consider reasonable overhead costs to be "investment" dollars, but you may have something else in mind.

Spent: verb, to spend, you could spend money settling a lawsuit but it would be a stretch to call that investment. Investment: to allocate money in the expectation of future benefit, so that could mean administrative expenses, which would cover and include a lot (but not all) spending. My vote would be on invested.

It's all about the perspective. A manager might consider test-driven development or security-driven development a matter of "spending" - in that it costs time and money and doesn't provide an immediate tangible benefit compared to making the thing that makes the money - but the engineers see it as an investment.

Both sides are right. If the company is never hacked, then it could both validate the security model as well as give a reason why not to bother in the first place. If the software runs smoothly throughout development (give or take a bug here and there), then all that testing was indeed a waste of time.

The difference between investment and cost is the ability to look into the future and analyze the past.

So there really isn't a straight answer.

EDIT: it also matters to the perspective of those outside of the organization. A bullish analyst might call Alphabet's moonshot projects an investment, while a bear would likely label them a cost.

Re: Alphabet Loses $859M on 'Moonshots' in 2Q 2016

#149

Post by brador » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 1:42 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #131

brador wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call the iPhone a moonshot, more an extreme iteration. This was around before the iPhone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPAQ (HP IPAQ) Combine that with a phone and update the software and make it designed and you have an iphone.

The iPhone went without keyboard and put all real estate towards the touch screen. That was a big change back then.

The HP IPAQ didn't have a keyboard on standard models. Touchscreen only for text entry, with a little stylus to tap it out with. Around 5-10 hardware buttons around the case for things like back, volume controls, power etc. POCKET PC had excel, word, played and recorded audio files but was difficult to use and sluggish on the lower end models.

The top wiki picture with keyboard is one of the later models aimed at the Blackberry corporate users.

Iphone wasn't that innovative, just did things simply and really did "just work", which was a big deal at the time.

Re: Alphabet Loses $859M on 'Moonshots' in 2Q 2016

#150

Post by anjc » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 1:42 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #33

I don't think it's right to equate R&D spending with "losses". Google makes a profit, not a loss, so technically it does not have losses. It has expenses, and among those, investments in future technology. If all Google could do with their cash flow was pay a dividend, that would be very sad, and it would call for a much lower P/E ratio. This article completely misstates the facts. Perhaps the way they break out thei…

It's an accounting loss. Their revenue is less than their costs. Nobody gauges the state of a company by just looking at one line on an income statement though.