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Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

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Re: Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

#251

Post by kernal »

FredPret wrote: post #140

It's going to take a long time for alternatives to make inroads into Google. There are lots of marketing dollars looking for a home, and Google is going to be one of the better bets for some time to come. They may turn into a zombie but they won't die for a long, long time. For example, cable companies still exist and have a ton of paid ads on them. Fox makes $3-5B in sales per quarter: https://valustox.com/FOXA Sinc…

I don’t think so. All a startup needs to do is build 50+ data centers around world. Lay thousands of miles of terrestrial and under sea fiber optic cables. And finally build a browser and obtain 80% market share.

Re: Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

#252

Post by jasonvorhe »

jeffbee wrote: post #61
dmckinno wrote: post #9

I thought that this earnings announcement would be the first one where we'd see some impact from competitive knowledge engines, e.g. Perplexity, You.com, ChatGPT + Bing, etc., but Google still grew search $6B/15%. This is impressive both because it's hard to keep such a big business growing at that rate and because essentially everyone in my social circle has moved on from going to Google first for information. I gue…

If you have a social circle where 100% of your contacts turn to an LLM first, not only have you buried yourself deep in a niche filter bubble, but you have also surrounded yourself with some of the planet's most misinformed people. If I were you, I'd be worried.

I don't think there's a measurable difference between his social circle and those who still rely on traditional media (news, TV, mainstream "journalism") to form their view of the world. It's just another cage.

Re: Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

#253

Post by falcor84 »

Jensson wrote: post #89
linkjuice4all wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I could imagine how they might be helpful in initial research - but no way I'm letting some LLM book a hotel that might not exist or get me car insurance from StratesFrarm Unsurance.

> but no way I'm letting some LLM book a hotel that might not exist or get me car insurance from StratesFrarm Unsurance. Ah, scammers targeting your LLM assistant will certainly be a thing, this really sounds like the old "I bought the Eiffel tower" scams.

I'm not clear how this is different from scammers targeting humans? If anything, I'd expect it to be easier to set up the LLM agent to have secure/cryptographical validation of the providers, to prevent against the sorts of traps that humans fall into.

In the simplest case, we could just have trusted authorities provide lists of verified booking partners, same as e.g. Google Flights does now.

Re: Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

#254

Post by falcor84 »

hooloovoo_zoo wrote: post #231
falcor84 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I’m not going to use an LLM to shop for car insurance or look for hotels. As I understand it, this is a great use-case for AI agents (a-la Custom GPT) and I wouldn't be surprised if the tech for that matures over the next year.

The whole agent idea is questionable anyway. Sites are are already optimized to require the absolute minimum effort for conversion and most of the interesting aggregator sites already exist and are similarly optimized. Who's going to want a clunky natural language interface that breaks half the time?

I would. I don't know what you're referring to as "absolute minimum", but when I book a flight I'm typically taken through a flow of about 10 pages, each trying to convince me to buy another set of extras. I would love an agent whom I could tell to not buy any extras and just get the basic plane tickets for me in one click, or if it fails to do so, to try again with another partner.

Re: Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

#255

Post by refulgentis »

lanza wrote: post #192
refulgentis wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, it's too low, see link at bottom: my guess is the $2B number, inclusive of all granted but not vested, is the correct #. In general people way overestimate the # of SWEs at Google relative to the employee #, even within Google. I don't wanna get too cute in public but some fermi estimates including, say, number of employees per engineer at a 100 person startup, and a jaundiced yet correct view of how mu…

It's in the earnings. It was $5.2B this quarter against $15.7B repurchased.

[deleted]

Re: Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

#256

Post by refulgentis »

derf_ wrote: post #194
refulgentis wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A side effect is avoiding dilution from RSU grants. Poster is correct: that is not the reason for them. We can confirm this. Compare RSUs granted/year -- $150M -- to buybacks this quarter -- $70B. ~ 700x as much.

According to https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001652044/0... their stock-based compensation expense was $15.539b in 2023 (and actual repurchases were $2.324b).

Brief notes after spending 10 minutes figuring out how to get this, not nitpicking or saying you got anything wrong. Source was page with "54" at the bottom

- Unvested grants over 4 years vs. buybacks this year - #s are for 2020, not 2023 - # excludes tax witholdings (i.e. shares they'll never grant). - For 2020, grants of 15.539 - 10.273 witholding = ~5B, matching sibling comment's correction - $2.324B is one of 4 columns, real number is $50.274 B - so for 2020, real #s are 5.26B in unvested grants over 4 years versus 50.274B in buybacks that year. - for 2023, 22.578 - 10.164 = 12.4B in unvested grants over 4 years, versus 62B in buybacks that year

Re: Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

#257

Post by BosStartup »

falcor84 wrote: post #254
hooloovoo_zoo wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole agent idea is questionable anyway. Sites are are already optimized to require the absolute minimum effort for conversion and most of the interesting aggregator sites already exist and are similarly optimized. Who's going to want a clunky natural language interface that breaks half the time?

I would. I don't know what you're referring to as "absolute minimum", but when I book a flight I'm typically taken through a flow of about 10 pages, each trying to convince me to buy another set of extras. I would love an agent whom I could tell to not buy any extras and just get the basic plane tickets for me in one click, or if it fails to do so, to try again with another partner.

That would be the first step of rollout. The next step would be to ask you in ways that make it hard for you to say no. An LLM agent isn't going to stop companies from bad behavior/dark patterns, it's going to make them more effective at deploying dark patterns to segments of the market.

I think only competition and/or regulation helps push down the allure that dark patterns present to companies.

Re: Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

#258

Post by HDThoreaun »

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #159
wskinner wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you as a shareholder receive a dividend of X% of the share price, you owe tax on it. But if the company buys back stock and as a result the share price increases by X%, you do not owe tax on that unrealized gain until you choose to sell your stock. That’s good for investors.

Also, dividends are taxed as ordinary income whereas stock buybacks lead to capital gains, which almost always have a lower tax rate.

Only if youve held the stock for less than 6 months. Most dividends are taxed at capital gains rate.

Re: Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

#259

Post by oblio »

nikhizzle wrote: post #25

A possible endgame of this quest for growth is just mixing unlabeled ads directly in with search content. Effectively pay for ranking with some quality filter. I'm pretty sure it won't come to that, but worse things have happened.

In many countries this would be illegal for classic media.

Re: Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

#260

Post by bamboozled »

falcor84 wrote: post #81
baron816 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that most of the traffic being stolen away is going to be for low value searches. I (and probably almost everyone else) use Google when I already know what I want, ie I’m trying to get to a company’s website to buy a particular thing, but don’t know their url name. I’m not going to use an LLM to shop for car insurance or look for hotels.

>I’m not going to use an LLM to shop for car insurance or look for hotels. As I understand it, this is a great use-case for AI agents (a-la Custom GPT) and I wouldn't be surprised if the tech for that matures over the next year.

And Google will be developing Gemini further so rheu still be in the game
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