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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

#311

Post by falcolas »

CydeWeys wrote: post #282
rokhayakebe wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Effectively or Efficiently? I can search the internet way better. Email me what you are looking for and 9 times out of 10 I will send you back something better than what Google will spit out. Furthermore you won't even have to sift through 10 links, or change your search, I will do all this and send you the result back.

This is such an incomprehensible boast. Do I think that you might be able to deliver me handpicked results that are better than a Google search? Sure. Can you do it for me in 100ms or better, and at no cost? What are you even proposing, human search agents? That's absurd.

You say that like Google doesn't employ humans to help make their search results better.

They do. Most companies which build their primary product on some form of heuristics have "domain experts" who help filter the wheat from the chaff.

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

#314

Post by nostrademons »

SilasX wrote: post #90

Out of curiosity, is there a reason Google/Alphabet shouldn't be on the Dow?

The Dow is useless as a stock index. It's composed of only 30 stocks, so a big move in one of them (like when Caterpillar announced a restructuring charge and its stock tanked by 20%) will be reflected in the index even if it has nothing to do with the broader market. Also, the index tends to skew toward older blue-chips (hence the name "Dow Jones Industrial Average), so it doesn't reflect a lot of what's actually going on in the market. There's not a single Internet stock on it, for example: the "technology" sector is represented by Apple, IBM, Cisco, Intel, and Microsoft, and Amazon/Google/Facebook/even Ebay & Yahoo are conspicuously absent.

Anybody with any sort of financial literacy uses the S&P 500 as the proxy for the U.S. stock market. Even that has its problems, but it's a lot closer to meaningful than the Dow is.

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

#315

Post by dang »

putlake wrote: post #91
pluma wrote: post #64

EDIT: Go fuck yourself, HN.

It's clear you have no understanding of markets. Price per share is meaningless. What is being compared is the market cap (Price per share * Number of shares outstanding). In other words, the total value of the company.

> It's clear you have no understanding of markets.

There was no call for that. We ban accounts when people attack others personally, so please don't do this again.

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

#316

Post by imaginenore »

bradshaw1965 wrote: post #195
cryptoz wrote: post #35

The comparisons between Google and Apple aren't as apples-to-apples as everyone in the media seems to think. If we're talking about the future of these companies, and their earning power, they are situating themselves very differently. Apple is really a consumer electronics company, Google is an artificial intelligence company. And investors think more money will be in the future of AI instead of consumer hardware an…

Both companies will struggle for the kind of revenue growth Wall Street is looking for. Ad sales account for 99% of Google revenue, with speculative ventures generating less then $500 million. It's all about finding products and services that people are willing to part with cash.

Self-driving cars market can probably double Google's value when it takes off.

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

#317

Post by cvburgess »

bane wrote: post #312

As an American I think it's pretty badass that something like 8 or 9 of the top 10 most valuable companies in the world are all American. I'm not sure if that means we're doing something right, but it's still pretty cool for a moment.

As an American I find it actually very disappointing. We have the wealthiest, most powerful companies, and a government that threatens to shutdown every year. Many citizens can't afford healthcare and basic necessities, and yet we have companies with billions of dollars tucked away over seas.

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

#318

Post by ethbro »

chm wrote: post #273
dcw303 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently I searched Amazon to read reviews of a book I bought on Kindle a few years ago. Now every website with Amazon affiliate advertising is showing me ads for that book. Considering that Amazon could have run a simple account search to determine that I am definitely not interested in seeing ads for a product that I already own, I think that the AI-targeting ad revolution is a while off yet. That is unrelated to G…

I have the same experience. On my machine, only Safari is "vanilla" - other browsers have various levels of ad/js blocking. So the only time I see ads is in Safari. I can't believe they're still feeding me Newegg ads for components that I already own and have bought from Newegg . I understand that's not as trivial a problem as it sounds, but I can't help but think companies are overpaying for ads.

To be fair, Google is in the business of making money on ads. If the customer wants to throw money on a stupid ad buy, then that's not particularly their concern.

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

#319

Post by Reedx »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #218
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.

Google's flagship product is an advertising platform, not a search box.

This is an annoying meme. Are concession stands the flagship product of movie theaters?

People use Google for search, email, maps, etc. And that's what the company was built for. If they had a better way to monetize than ads, they would certainly drop ads.

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

#320

Post by arikrak »

bane wrote: post #312

As an American I think it's pretty badass that something like 8 or 9 of the top 10 most valuable companies in the world are all American. I'm not sure if that means we're doing something right, but it's still pretty cool for a moment.

All 10 of the 10 most valuable publicly traded companies are American (multinational) companies. #11 is Chinese and #20 is Swiss [1].

(Not that the largest 4 companies are tech companies, so that explains part of it...)

[1] http://www.dogsofthedow.com/largest-companies-by-market-cap....

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