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Alphabet Announces First Quarter 2026 Results

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Re: Alphabet Announces First Quarter 2026 Results

#61

Post by TheGRS »

Ifkaluva wrote: post #40
mattmaroon wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I went through YC in 2007 a founder whose name you know drunkenly told me at a party that Google Docs and Macbooks would have Microsoft out of business by 2012. Someone here told me in 2018 I was nuts to buy a gas-powered car because in less time than you would drive a car for, everyone will have switched to electric and there will be no gas stations left. The impending deaths of most things are greatly exaggera…

Next: “SWE is largely solved, expect mass unemployment in the next few years”?

That's already half of the threads I see on reddit lately.

Re: Alphabet Announces First Quarter 2026 Results

#62

Post by mettamage »

bitpush wrote: post #49
_the_inflator wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have internal knowledge, I am closely affiliated with Google. Infrastructure and scalability has been and is key, as well as technical expertise still absolutely super top notch. Let’s put it this way: Google is the only company that knows how to find, store and utilize information beyond a specific narrowing. And I mean it really in the sense of curating, compression, long time storage, load balancing as well as c…

This is such an interesting take. Thank you.

Seconding that, not sure if it's the full take I'd stand behind but the perspective is definitely food for thought and way more thought out than my own.

Re: Alphabet Announces First Quarter 2026 Results

#63

Post by decimalenough »

mattmaroon wrote: post #23
kridsdale3 wrote: post #11

12 months ago everyone agreed that Search was doomed, ChatGPT would kill Google, and Bard/Gemini were a joke.

When I went through YC in 2007 a founder whose name you know drunkenly told me at a party that Google Docs and Macbooks would have Microsoft out of business by 2012. Someone here told me in 2018 I was nuts to buy a gas-powered car because in less time than you would drive a car for, everyone will have switched to electric and there will be no gas stations left. The impending deaths of most things are greatly exaggera…

People overestimate the rate of change in the short run and underestimate the impact of change in the long run.

Re: Alphabet Announces First Quarter 2026 Results

#65

Post by halJordan »

toddmorey wrote: post #64

I know for most people that the big surprise here is sustained search ad revenue in the face of AI. But I’m super curious on margins because I thought for sure offering so much free AI inference would be so insanely expensive it harmed margins.

No one is losing money on inference these days. Google's vertical integration means that they have some of the lowest inference costs in the industry in any event.

Re: Alphabet Announces First Quarter 2026 Results

#66

Post by spwa4 »

amazingamazing wrote: post #31
eykanal wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google was one of the earlier companies to do mass layoffs, back in 2023: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/20/google-to-lay-off-12000-peop...

AFAIK this is literally the only time google has laid more than a few thousand off at once

Only if you count a single day. If you count yearly Google has not stopped layoffs of "more than a few thousand" since 2023. And I bet some months get above 1000. The big layoff in 2023 was not actually the first time by the way, that was much earlier (there was a wave of office consolidation in the 2010s). Also the 2023 layoff was at least 3 distinct waves.

And constant layoffs very much have the result on morale you'd expect today.

Re: Alphabet Announces First Quarter 2026 Results

#67

Post by lokar »

jader201 wrote: post #54
Ifkaluva wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next: “SWE is largely solved, expect mass unemployment in the next few years”?

Except we're actually seeing a non-trivial reduction in SWE jobs, particularly entry-level roles. May be short term and turn around at some point, but the current trends definitely feel lower vs. higher.

Are we? Compare to when? How about compared to the 30 year variation, not just the last 6.

In “big tech” or internet services, or also the non-tech companies that employ most engineers?

Re: Alphabet Announces First Quarter 2026 Results

#68

Post by amazingamazing »

shimon wrote: post #39
amazingamazing wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would llms replace search? It was a crazy take in 2023 and is still one today. Suppose there are no search engines and you want to find some headphones. How exactly are you doing this with llms?

Actually no, LLMs (preferably tool-using LLMs that can themselves do web searches and price lookups) are a great way to shop, especially if you're looking in a category and don't know exactly what item you want. You just say "I want to find some headphones" and it makes you some recommendations. Or it helps you nail down what you're looking for first and then gives you options at various price points. I've found this…

In my example there are no search engines. And if there were why would they allow tool calls?

Re: Alphabet Announces First Quarter 2026 Results

#69

Post by mghackerlady »

nostrademons wrote: post #26
throwaway_20357 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone explain how search revenue is still _growing_ in the age of LLMs?

Have you looked at the results for any commercial query, something like [sofa beds] or [hard drives]? It is basically 100% ads. Anything where the user is intending to spend money, they show only ads, and have all the top producers in the world bid against each other for who gets featured, and Google captures essentially all surplus value in the transaction. My wife is an investor, and one of her portfolio areas is p…

Doesn't even have to be a query where you intend to spend money, I can't tell you the amount of times I look something up wondering if it exists or to learn more about it and it tries to sell me something

Re: Alphabet Announces First Quarter 2026 Results

#70

Post by nostrademons »

dpflan wrote: post #51
mattmaroon wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I went through YC in 2007 a founder whose name you know drunkenly told me at a party that Google Docs and Macbooks would have Microsoft out of business by 2012. Someone here told me in 2018 I was nuts to buy a gas-powered car because in less time than you would drive a car for, everyone will have switched to electric and there will be no gas stations left. The impending deaths of most things are greatly exaggera…

- https://www.rip-grep.com/ - https://www.rip-grep.com/microsoft

Huh, funny. I always associated ripgrep with the find/grep replacement written in Rust:

https://github.com/burntsushi/ripgrep

Wonder if it was an intentional pun.

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