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Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

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Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#231

Post by jonknee »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #221
jasode wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Calling someone an "X company" means that they make their money from X. It doesn't necessarily mean that. It's more common to associate "X" with their business competency . If we always insist on X to be only defined by revenue, we then get the following type of soundbites that we pat ourselves on the back for: - McDonalds is actually a real estate company and not a hamburger company because they make more money fro…

> "McDonalds is actually a real estate company and not a hamburger company because they make more money from rent than from food" I find this interesting. Are McDonalds making most of their revenue from real estate rents from their franchisees and/or those involved in their supply chain, or is the bulk of this land outside their hamburger business?

McDonalds is an interesting case in that they own all (well, almost all) the real estate for all the restaurants. The franchise owners pay rent based on sales which can end up being hefty. Some activist investors are pushing them to spin off that real estate into a REIT so that both sides of the business can be more fairly valued.

Dollars wise McDonalds does make more in rent than in selling food (by about 2x).

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#232

Post by codeka »

coldcode wrote: post #120
pinaceae wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unlike Google, where practically 100% comes from one single product, which is ads. all "other bets" are actually losing money, per their data.

People love Apple's products (for the most part). People hate ads (pretty much everyone). So this makes no sense to me at all that Google is worth more than Apple. If you imagine the future, no one really knows what each will do with all the stuff they are building, so saying Google is worth more than Apple in the future seems silly.

> People hate ads (pretty much everyone)

Except of course, the people actually paying for ads don't hate them... otherwise they wouldn't be paying for them.

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#233

Post by lunula »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #63
yulaow wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for b) I would say the contrary. Have you tried entering in a common website from a mobile browser without an adblocker? You get like so many ads, SO MANY, one over the other, some full-screen some that just let you see the 10% of the real site, some with a pseudo-pop-up, all with those little "x" almost unclickable to close them that force you to click on the ad in the end. And in the "free apps with ads" of the mob…

> Have you tried entering in a common website from a mobile browser without an adblocker? Not in a long time; Firefox Mobile with Adblock Plus makes the web far more usable on a phone. The constraints of a mobile device make adblocking even more critical than on desktop systems. If a browser or mobile environment wanted to differentiate itself, it could pre-install and pre-configure an adblocker.

You could do it with a rooted phone and adfree android, which is like adblock plus but rewrites /etc/hosts to route all ad serving domains to localhost. This one simple trick convinces even ad supported apps that they are offline, and they cease to show ads.

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#234

Post by scarmig »

endtime wrote: post #208
drewda wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's flagship product, in the sense of revenue, is the text ad ;-)

The text ad which is targeted using AI?

I'm sure this is pretty proprietary information, but I do wonder what the value add of the AI-targeting is. Is it a relatively small bonus on top of a solid platform and audience for ads? Or is it the killer feature?

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#235

Post by pilsetnieks »

newman314 wrote: post #69

People were losing their minds over the fact that iPhone shipments slightly declined. If you look at the year over year growth (excluding the massive bump for iPhone 6), it would show that AAPL is still ahead of the growth curve. See https://imgur.com/vO0kPEy * Apple's quarterly revenue: $75.9bil * Apple's quarterly profit: $18.4bil * Google's quarterly revenue: $21.3bil * Google's quarterly profit: $6.8bil In sheer…

> iPhone shipments slightly declined

iPhone shipments didn't decline, iPhone shipment growth declined.

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#236

Post by JoshTriplett »

lunula wrote: post #233
JoshTriplett wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have you tried entering in a common website from a mobile browser without an adblocker? Not in a long time; Firefox Mobile with Adblock Plus makes the web far more usable on a phone. The constraints of a mobile device make adblocking even more critical than on desktop systems. If a browser or mobile environment wanted to differentiate itself, it could pre-install and pre-configure an adblocker.

You could do it with a rooted phone and adfree android, which is like adblock plus but rewrites /etc/hosts to route all ad serving domains to localhost. This one simple trick convinces even ad supported apps that they are offline, and they cease to show ads.

I just avoid installing any apps that have ads in the first place. The only time I see ads is with the one app I use that embeds a WebView and loads webpages, many of which have ads.

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#237

Post by dntrkv »

pinaceae wrote: post #181
jpatokal wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope: there's Google ads, Google non-ads, and "Other Bets". Q4 Google non-ad revenue was $2.1 billion, or almost 10%, and this share has been steadily increasing. https://abc.xyz/investor/news/earnings/2015/Q4_google_earnin...

yes, but no numbers on profits out of those segments. OP was pointing out investor's criticism of Apple as a one-trick pony due to iPhone - I am pointing out that outside of ads, nothing generates any significant profit at Google either, even more so actually. but whatever, HN really is the wrong forum for certain topics.

Don't know why you're getting downvoted but I agree. Google is just as much, if not more so, of a one-trick pony as Apple.

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#238

Post by bbq »

pessimizer wrote: post #174
shimon wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's flagship product is a box that you can type words into, and get relevant texts/references/facts in response. It seems like a textbook example of AI.

Is grep AI?

If you let me know how you use grep to search the internet as effectively as I do with Google, sure!

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#239

Post by epimetheus »

millstone wrote: post #188
mrb wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which pretty much shows that the market value of a company is not based on what they sell today, but on the expectation of what they will sell tomorrow. Does Apple do research in biotech (Alphabet's Calico)? Are they developing drones delivering wireless internet to the world (Google's Skybender)? Do they have an investment arm (Google Ventures)? Did they start an ISP (Google Fiber)? People see Alphabet's increasing…

Apple's P/E was quite low even at the height of the iPhone growth. The expectation for what Apple will sell tomorrow is nothing, because they'll be out of business, and it's been that way for a long time. Meanwhile, since Google was founded, Apple went from the Mac company to the iPod company to the iPhone company. Apple has a proven ability to reinvent itself, with more agility and success than Google or really any…

"Apple has a proven ability to reinvent itself"

Apple does, or Steve Jobs did? I don't think Cook is anywhere near Jobs. Meanwhile, Larry Page is not only still alive, but is positioning his company so that he still has creative power and final say.

As much as I love Apple, I'm not as optimistic of their future without Jobs.

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#240

Post by biztos »

percentcer wrote: post #145

It's interesting to that it took this long, just considering the utility of each company. If Apple disappeared tomorrow I'd be moderately inconvenienced, I'd have to pick up an Android handset instead of my iPhone and maybe set up some new podcast feeds. If Google disappeared the world would screech to a halt.

In the insanely unlikely event either company disappeared, it would mostly provide market opportunities; and how much it might "hurt" in the meantime is a very personal thing. I'd sure miss my iPhone or my Macbook Air way before I'd miss Google Maps or Search, the two Alphabet products I use religiously. Others might feel differently.

If Google were abducted by space aliens I'd immediately start an online ad exchange supported by a ubiquitous cookie. If Apple were likewise abducted I'd fork Android and hire a good industrial designer and try to eat Samsung's lunch before they come to their senses.

Neither company makes anything the average user can't live without, and neither company has a monopoly on stuff that excites nerds like us. Both are very very good at some things, sure, but let's not pretend the world really needs them per se.

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