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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

#411

Post by toxican »

jad wrote: post #158
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.

How's that? To search the web, I'd go to DuckDuckGo or Bing or whatever. Other companies also provide web mail, maps, office document solutions, etc. Google's definitely better at those things, but using a worse version of those products would not cause the world to "screech to a halt." Probably the most disruptive thing if Apple vanished would actually be every tech company suddenly needing to figure out how to use…

I love the idea of DuckDuckGo, and I used them for a year or so before I realized every other search resulted in frustration and me appending a !ge to it. So yes, there are alternatives, but I don't find them to be nearly as good.

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

#412

Post by ant6n »

jad wrote: post #158
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.

How's that? To search the web, I'd go to DuckDuckGo or Bing or whatever. Other companies also provide web mail, maps, office document solutions, etc. Google's definitely better at those things, but using a worse version of those products would not cause the world to "screech to a halt." Probably the most disruptive thing if Apple vanished would actually be every tech company suddenly needing to figure out how to use…

I once went to China, without Google. My online life screeched to a halt.

On the other hand, there were a few Chinese people there, and most of them seemed to have a non-halted life.

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

#413

Post by HSO »

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…

No need to make it about Apple vs Google or some newspaper narrative. In a world with negative short rates, money essentially becomes a "bad" (or negative good). Ceteris paribus, companies who deliver a lot of it today or in the immediate future will be valued less than those with cash flows farther out.

I still think the market is making a mistake here, in that the real difference between Google's and Apple's investment projects is not in their nature ("moonshot" vs "mundane") but in their PR. Google just talks more about them.

Given that investors think that Google's stream of cash flows is weighted towards the future and Apple's to the present, though, it makes sense that in the current rate environment valuations are as they are. See also Facebook, Amazon, or Netflix.

No need for grand narratives about the relative merits, product and management philosophies, or management personalities.

That said, I disagree with the market and am betting this is a bubble that will pop soon.

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

#414

Post by ant6n »

samstave wrote: post #156
lazaroclapp wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's brand trades a lot on having extremely well finished products with very polished experiences. If they started experimenting left and right like Google does, they would lose that brand image, which is arguably their most valuable asset (even above and beyond the technology itself). If Google releases Glass and it flops, it hardly affects their image ('well, yes, it's cool technology, that's what Google does, b…

> Apple's brand trades a lot on having extremely well finished products with very polished experiences I don't fully agree with this. Did you have the first version of the iPhone? No copy and paste? WTF. Antenna signal dropping because "you're holding it wrong!"? WTF. The only thing you can hold to the apple brand without any criticism is the industrial design of the packaging and look of their products has been cons…

Apple's brand is about the perception of perfection, not perfection.

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

#415

Post by ant6n »

metaphorm wrote: post #60
dangoor wrote: post #50

Interesting that Apple's net profits last quarter was greater than Alphabet's revenue.

many explanations for this but really at bottom the answer is that the two businesses are not comparable and this comparison is meaningless.

The length of the discussion surrounding this discussion would indicate that it is not meaningless.

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

#416

Post by 6stringmerc »

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…

>Google is an artificial intelligence company.

That's an interesting take, because for many years I'm pretty sure the largest portion of their income was from advertising revenue. That makes them an ad firm. Yeah they've diversified, but let's be honest, they're in sales straight up first and foremost.

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

#417

Post by pnut »

Mkansagra wrote: post #329

Let's be realistic for once. There is no such thing as complete AI. AI means a piece of software that does whatever you tell it to do, acting like a human. Simply Artificial = Human made Intelligence = Brain power or thinking power.

That may be technically true today, but it feels a little like parents taking credit for their child's accomplishments.

That distinction means less and less as time goes on, anyway.

After learning from a billion human lifetimes, and being coded by 100,000 humans' combined efforts, would it be such a surprise that something greater eventually emerges?

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

#418

Post by yoz-y »

pbreit wrote: post #298
draw_down wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, that product stance helps them avoid Google Reader-type situations.

First, Google abandoning Reader was a terrible decision. Easily worth a PM and a few devs. Second, I understand that part of the reason Apple executes well is because it minimizes distractions. But I believe a well-executing company like Apple should be able to take on more projects effectively.

I, for one, am glad that Reader got shut down. Although I was a heavy Reader user, I think that the RSS ecosystem is better without it. Now we have a relatively healthy number of aggregating services and third party clients.

For me, RSS is the way informational web should work.

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

#419

Post by mcv »

iainmerrick wrote: post #350
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.

Even if you forget the whole "where does the money come from?" angle, they're still an ad company: their flagship products are AdWords and AdSense. OK, to be fair, search is still very important too (in fact the most important content provider for their ad business). So call them a "search and advertising company". They use machine learning and are actively researching it, but that's true of a lot of companies. Is IB…

At Google, AI does seem to unite almost everything they do, from search, image recognition, self-driving cars, and ad placement. Of course all their revenue is from ads, so in revenue, they're an advertising company, but in products, they're an AI company.

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

#420

Post by mcv »

Mkansagra wrote: post #329

Let's be realistic for once. There is no such thing as complete AI. AI means a piece of software that does whatever you tell it to do, acting like a human. Simply Artificial = Human made Intelligence = Brain power or thinking power.

> AI means a piece of software that does whatever you tell it to do

But it can figure out by itself how to do it.

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