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G is for Google
- Yhippa 11y agoDid Google effectively just do a rotate operation on a red-black tree for their organization?
- axyjo 11y agoThis is a big move, which might also possibly help with EU anti-trust accusations by splitting up the big-ol' monolithic GOOG into functionally separate units.
- _pdp_ 11y agoI also think this is the case :)
- tyingq 11y agoI would go one further, and say that's the primary motivator. Preemptive restructuring.
- ocdtrekkie 11y agoI would hope the EU can see right through transparent moves like this, but I suspected this as well.
- tptacek 11y agoDid I miss something in the announcement? When people say that Google is "monolithic", they're saying that Google contains Youtube (#1 video site), search (#1 search), Android (#1 mobile OS), maps (#1 map site), Gmail (#1 email site?), and G+ (Facebook competitor). These companies appear to remain inside the Google corporation after the "restructuring", and so this doesn't ameliorate any of EU's concerns. I think this is more about changing what Larry and Sergey do all day.
- tyingq 11y ago"so this doesn't ameliorate any of EU's concerns" The announcement seems deliberately vague. You're right in that it doesn't specifically address the EU concerns, but it creates a structure where that's easier to do.
- tptacek 11y agoI don't see how it does that.
- tyingq 11y agoTwo main areas. It prepares you, in terms of financial visibility, experience, etc, if the most painful of anti-trust remedies (breakup) ever happens. AT&T, for example, would have likely proposed different terms for their breakup if they had better visibility into how Western Electric would have performed on its own. It provides more public financial visibility into some areas of concern, early. For example, it looks like Google fiber isn't staying with Google. Google fiber is probably a concern for at least US anti-trust regulators.
- sangnoir 11y agoThe new structure won't affect the EU's investigations, as you had stated earlier. All the components the EU will whine about are still under the Google subsidiary (Search, Maps, YouTube, Android). The only companies exiting from Googles purview are Calico, Nest, Fiber, Ventures, Capital,and X. None of which were likely candidates for antitrust prosecution.
- tyingq 11y agoIt's chess, not checkers. One move at a time. Also, minor, but Fiber would be an interest point for anti-trust, just not in the EU.
- seiji 11y agoI think this is more about changing what Larry and Sergey do all day. This is in line with their prior strategery of continually maneuvering towards "give us more authority but no responsibility."
- btian 11y agoYou forgot Chrome - #1 web browser
- tsenkov 11y agoYeah, is Chrome becoming a separate company? "Under the new operating structure, its main Google business will include search, ads, maps, apps, YouTube and Android and the related technical infrastructure (the “Google business”)"
- tedunangst 11y agoAlthough what often happens is that now divisions compete against either in suboptimal ways. Search and Maps are separate? Great, until Search decides maps are really cool and starts building their own version, again. It takes a strong hand at the top to prevent division heads from viewing their peers as rivals.
- noelsusman 11y agoI'm pretty sure Search and Maps will still be operating under the Google organization. They're just spinning off their more "wacky" projects that aren't directly related to Internet technology.
- tedunangst 11y agoAgreed, though it's not the wacky stuff that's drawing the ire of antitrust regs.
- wineisfine 11y agoRight, this is the real reason this is happening. Anticipating and staying 1 step ahead.
- rel 11y agoCongratulations to Sundar!
- techwizrd 11y agoI love how they buried the "Sundar Pichai is new Google CEO" bit in there. In any case, this sounds promising and it'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
- jordigg 11y agoSo all google divisions are now individual companies inside a conglomerated called Alphabet where Larry is the CEO and Sergei the President. Sundar Pichai is now the new CEO of Google. Is that right? Why do you think they are moving this way? Regulations? Taxes? What about Eric Schmidt? I don't know much about trading, but look at that "after hours" spike! http://postimg.org/image/ho5ecyr99/ http://postimg.org/image/ho5ecyr99/ EDIT: All google subsidiaries are now subsidiaries of a conglomerated called Alphabet. Google is a subsidiary too. Google stock will now be Alphabet stock.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Symmetry 11y agoI'd assume it was a move to make failure easier. Sclerosis is the natural fate of large corporations but variation and selection is an obvious way to help with that.
- vonmoltke 11y agoThe danger of conglomerates that give so much freedom to their subsidiaries is that said subsidiaries start actually competing against each other and hurting the business overall.
- dragonwriter 11y ago> The danger of conglomerates that give so much freedom to their subsidiaries is that said subsidiaries start actually competing against each other and hurting the business overall. Google seems to like competing against themselves, so I'm not sure that's something that they are particularly worried about.
- cma 11y agoStack ranking is already this times 10.
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- aesthetics1 11y agoI do not know much about big business financials, but this seems like a move that would allow Google to separate its experimental or research-based businesses that do not turn a profit from its giant bulging revenue beasts. It will likely allow Google to post better quarterlies, and push their stock up even higher. Appointing Sundar as CEO also allows them to focus more on the cool stuff in Alphabet and let Sundar run the meat and potatoes Google operations. Interesting moves.
- vonmoltke 11y agoExcept it is the conglomerate that is going to trade on the market, not the individual business units. They are changing their corporate structure to be more like GE or Lockheed. All the units will still be summed together come earnings time.
- Nullabillity 11y agoAccording to the blog post the earnings reports will be separated by division.
- scott_karana 11y agoSure, but they all still trade in one big GOOG pile.
- cowsandmilk 11y agoThat is just more transparency into internal operations. Different divisions of Microsoft report separately, but a division taking a billion dollar write-off still impacts the share price.
- akhilcacharya 11y agoWow, this is really strange. Has there been any precedent for things like this?
- baq 11y agoi'd say it makes perfect sense. google search becomes google, and the rest of the company (cars, cubesat internet, balloon internet, more down-to-earth ideas) belong somewhere else.
- nashashmi 11y agoIt does make sense. Honestly, Sergey and larry have been complaining about this for a long time. But what makes this hard to believe is that they actually called it Alphabet, Inc. It has got to be april fools!
- drak0n1c 11y agoLook at the history of conglomerates like Mitsubishi, or Berkshire Hathaway. Alphabet is remarkable since it's a very organized and name-concerned conglomeration, though.
- shas3 11y agoMany large companies in other sectors are structured like this. Google, through its diverse acquisitions has now, in that sense, become like a lot of the older conglomerates like GE, Berkshire Hathaway, Raytheon, DuPont, Honeywell, UTC, 3M, etc. To different extents, these are all organized like Alphabet will be. Take branding: core products may be sold under the company's name, other products may be sold in a nearly autonomous fashion. Similarly, quarterly earnings calls are centered on the performance of each of these sub-units.
- mehrzad 11y agoI thought the GP was asking whether a conglomerate was formed in this bottom-up restructuring before. Many of the other conglomerates seemed to have become large through parent companies making or buying subsidiaries, not a subsidiary forming the parent.
- PascLeRasc 11y agoInteresting. I suppose they'd fail PG's test of owning your own .com.
- aylons 11y agoThey are not consumer-facing, so this would not matter.
- Zigurd 11y ago.biz domains suddenly get more visible.
- DanSmooth 11y agoOr their own facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/alphabetINC https://www.facebook.com/alphabetINC
- jotux 11y agoLooks like they're on abc.xyz.
- Numberwang 11y agoI actually tried registering that domain some months ago. It was taken. Dammit.
- kraymer 11y ago
- mattzito 11y agoThis seems largely, at my admittedly brief viewing, to try to quell some of the structural concerns around all of these "non-core" businesses that the Artist Formerly Known as Google are participating in. I think it will streamline the management of all of these different businesses, at least make it clear where Larry and Sergey are focusing their efforts.
- sz4kerto 11y agoDoes this mean that running high-risk project inside Google started to damage the reputation of Google? Many (most) of the moonshot projects failed (which is normal), and I have the feeling that these events had a somewhat bad fallout on the image of the whole company (questioning its invicibility to some extent, mostly in the eyes of the press).
- Oletros 11y agoIs there a list of moonshots failed?
- coldtea 11y agoWave, Plus, Glasses at least. If we are to include less ambitious stuff, Google Video, Orkut, Chromebooks (never went far), Reader, Google Code, Dart, nothing much came out of Morotola, etc. And let's see were those "self driving cars" will go, market-wise...
- 10098 11y agoAren't Chromebooks the best selling laptop on amazon or something?
- akhilcacharya 11y agoThey are. They're really well used in the education sector now too, for good reason.
- coldtea 11y agoYes, they sell decently, but do no represent any profit for Google (which gives the OS for free). It's around 5-6 million units sold anually, but, as Google themselves said, Google don't make any money of off them. Samsung, Acer, etc, who produce the units do, but again, in total it represents a tiny slither of laptop profits due to the small margins. Most Chromebooks (70%) go to the education market as cheapo laptops.
- closetnerd 11y agoSomething similar to Virgin I suppose. To keep other ventures from harming Google.
- zippzom 11y agoDoesn't this completely change what you are buying when you buy GOOGL shares? It used to be you were investing in a search/ad company that owned a lot of other stuff. Now you are investing in a company that owns the leading search/ad company. The difference is obviously academic but I think it will make a difference in how the shares are traded. Perception drives the market after all.
- swalsh 11y agoSo Alphabet will start a new car company, and google can continue on as a search giant. It makes a lot of sense. So many people keep saying their biggest fear of google is that they will turn devices like Google Glass, or the Google car into products to collect information on people. When those products themselves are viable business models.
- kylemk 11y agoYes, but the issue is that Larry and Sergey see more value in user data than they do in "viable business models." So privacy is still a huge concern with any subsidiary of Alphabet. Google just became a synonym for privacy issues because that was the parent company - now Alphabet is that parent company. No less evil, just new.
- loteck 11y agoTo summarize (correct me if I'm wrong): - Google will now be operated as a subsidiary of a new company called Alphabet. - Alphabet will be publicly traded under the same symbols as Google is now traded. - Stock will just transfer as-is. - Sundar Pichai is now the CEO of Google. - Larry and Sergey will run Alphabet as CEO and President, respectively.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- dragonwriter 11y agoIts probably simpler to think of it this way: * What was called "Google" will now be called "Alphabet", with Larry and Sergey as CEO and President. * Much of the core business of the old Google will be operated in a division/subsidiary of the new Alphabet called "Google", of which Sundar Pichai will be CEO. * The rest of the old Google's business will be in other units of Alphabet.
- untog 11y agoThat is in no way simpler.
- dragonwriter 11y agoObviously, that's subjective. I find it easier to think of it as a name change and the creation of a new subordinate entity within the old organization with its own CEO than to think of it as creating a new entity above Google, and transferring lots of functions from Google to the new superior entity, transferring all stock in Google to stock in the new superior entity, and changing the leadership of Google.
- ghawk 11y agoThe original question was to correct the comment if it was wrong, not to state the content in a simpler form!
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- dluan 11y agoCongrats the founders of Google. Monumental move. I have very fond memories of early Google.com, and there always used to be a vivid spirit in their products that everything was so experimental and technically on the edge. That feeling has been gone for a very long time, but since Larry has come back it's been slowly returning. Call me what you want, but I feel like this is such a smart move for the founders' freedom to explore. And the way they announced it is totally in line with the spirit. I'm sure there was a lot of technical work, and will be more, but they way it's all hidden in the back so that they can focus on the most important parts. I'm a fan.
- FlailFast 11y agoSeems like Alphabet (Google/Page/Brin) and Facebook (Zuckerberg) are in a race to become the Berkshire Hathaway of the Internet.
- eatonphil 11y agoAre they really on the same playing field, though?
- josh2600 11y agoIs this purely a function of sharding liability across a conglomerate of businesses? It seems like concentrating Google's ad revenue in a smaller, more efficient business unit is a nod to Berkshire Hathaway's method of business. I can't recall this sort of thing happening in my lifetime, so it will be really interesting to see how this plays out. I also wonder how this would be treated if Google didn't have the crazy corporate structure they have now (where public shares are essentially non-equity and non-voting). http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/the-many-classes-of-google-stock/ http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/the-many-classe... Edit: I am reasonably certain this is a tax and liability optimization strategy. It allows their more risky units to operate with separate liability from their cash cow. Edit 2: I'm actually surprised the stock value hasn't tanked because most of the future potential of Google just got moved outside of the company. How much of Google's future value was based on X? I would say a non-trivial amount of the stock price is the anticipation of future profits, which are now no longer a part of the company the stock is intended to index. Edit 3: Disregard Edit 2, I misread the release the second time through and assumed X was not part of the company :).
- lallysingh 11y agoRe: edit 2: the stock holds all the stuff it held yesterday, right? The stock is now for alphabet.
- josh2600 11y agoYep, I misread it the second time through, sorry!
- rbinv 11y agoGoogle stock is converted to Alphabet stock. X moves from Google to Alphabet. No change in future value here.
- return0 11y agoIsn't 96% of Google profits from search ads only? They 've done a million ventures since then, still remain ad-funded.
- revelation 11y agoSo much for "you need that .com".
- dcosson 11y agoCrazy they picked a name where they don't own the .com
- tschuy 11y agoLooks like Alphabet.com whois was updated on August 3rd through a domain holding company. Maybe they do?
- selllikesybok 11y agoB is for BMW.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- akilism 11y agoisn't amazon already doing the a->z thing
- bbcbasic 11y agoand Andreessen horowitZ
- rbinv 11y agoFrom the abc.xyz source code: Sergey and I are seriously in the business of starting new things. Alphabet will also include our X lab, which incubates new efforts like Wing, our drone delivery effort<a href="http://www.hooli.xyz/" http://www.hooli.xyz/" target="_blank" class="hidden-link">.</a>
- echelon 11y agoI wondered if the reorg would have any impact on the stock price. Given this joke, now I really wonder. Are we sure it isn't April 1st? Are we sure this press release isn't a hoax? This is so wild I'm having trouble believing any of it.
- davidcgl 11y agoIt's an easter egg. It's a pretty common thing Google does.
- diminish 11y agoAlphabet is only missing a startup accelerator, why wouldn't Sergey and Larry now focus on earlier stage themselves? All those ambitious things can be achieved better by a lot of startupa competing in parallel.
- stephendicato 11y agoAll I can think of is "Hooli XYZ - The moonshot factory". http://www.hooli.xyz/#inspiration http://www.hooli.xyz/#inspiration
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- tmpforareason 11y agoNice catch, i am curious now if the silicon valley text written by knowing this?
- trequartista 11y agoIs $GOOG going the Berkshire Hathaway route? Conglomerate with a lot of non-related subsidiaries?
- tashoecraft 11y agoProbably was done to be ahead of apple and amazon in the yellow pages.
- spitfire 11y agoWhat's a yellow page?
- citruspi 11y agoA directory of businesses, like a phone book for businesses instead of people[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_pages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_pages
- scott_karana 11y agoI think spitfire was being sarcastic, eg, "nobody looks for tech businesses in annual piles of irrelevant paper anymore"
- citruspi 11y agoYeah. I thought so too, but I wasn't sure, so I figured I might as well answer. It couldn't hurt.
- scott_karana 11y agoIt was very polite of you. :-)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- johnmaguire2013 11y agoI thought it was meant to be reminiscent of yellow pages, or the phrase "From A to Z". After all, Google is a directory service.
- deleted 11y ago
- ocdtrekkie 11y agoWill Google split off Android as a "separate company" under Alphabet to try to hide it from the EU's crackdown? This is the most traditional-corporation definitely-evil move Google has ever made, whether their letter claims otherwise or not.
- icebraining 11y agoWhat's evil about it? The idea that they're "hiding" from the EU crackdown is ridiculous. They know perfectly well it doesn't work like that.
- ocdtrekkie 11y agoMore of a loophole maybe than hiding. Like perhaps being one big company in the US, but somehow being "separate" companies that "don't collaborate" in the EU? There's other suggestions as to why, either to prevent experiments from tarnishing Google's brand, or to ensure Google's separate products can survive the eventual failure of the ad market.
- arihant 11y agoThis is great. The best thing about Google was their willingness to try interesting things. But the Apple-ification of Google lead them to look like a company suffering from identity crisis, at least from the outside. This will keep Google products unified and work together, and will give them opportunity to throw mud at the wall with Alphabet. Also worth mentioning is that this kind of corporate restructuring is fairly common. Usually it is done by X company expanding into X Industries with X being a subsidiary of X Industries. It is just more visible because they went with a different name, reasons of which are in the post.
- electricblue 11y agoI had to look at my system clock a few times to make sure today isn't the first of april.
- hkmurakami 11y agoAnd so Google becomes Berkshire Hathaway.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- rmason 11y agoAm I the only one who came away wondering why they didn't buy the domain alphabet.com? The company that owns it, ascio.com, isn't even using it. Or perhaps they were a bit too greedy?
- webXL 11y agoSomething tells me the kind of visitors Alphabet hopes to attract to their new website will be sophisticated enough to find it, and if not, they would be gently nudged by Google search results.
- mxuribe 11y agoIf their intent is to continue to be a non-traditional company then it makes sense to NOT stick to a predictable/conventional .COM domain. Specific to their chosen domain name, while I'm not crazy about this .XYZ domain extension, I give google...er...I mean, Alphabet awesomely big props for choosing a very different domain extension. Even though one might consider these guys Da Man, I feel choosing an alternative domain extension is a mild manner of "sticking it to Da Man". Since so many decent combos for a .COM are taken, its like having all new real estate created from next-to-nothing. I for one greatly favor having an internet with myriad and varied domain extensions. Kudos to Alphabet/Google for at least this seemingly small gesture!!
- 0x4a42 11y agoSo I guess A is Adsense.
- sangd 11y agoCongrats! It's a new chapter for Google, an exciting beginning for Alphabet. It definitely broke PG's theory on the .com
- arihant 11y agoNot really. Alphabet.com is crashed and is down since the press release. So a lot of people are doing what PG suspected.
- sangd 11y agoThose are conventional. “Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.”
- lothlorien 11y agoIt may be the exception that proves the rule.
- wineisfine 11y agoI wonder if, besides the obviously healthy restructuring, this is also to anticipate on future anti trust issues. It seems like they're getting one step ahead like this.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- rottencupcakes 11y agoJust a stray observation, but now Microsoft and Google are both run by Indian born CEOs.
- igammarays 11y agoAnd Adobe and Pepsi.
- pavlov 11y agoAnd Nokia (the profitable company that remains after they sold the phone division albatross to Microsoft).
- scholia 11y agoQuite a few of them around https://in.finance.yahoo.com/photos/indian-ceos-leading-major-world-companies-1391495476-slideshow/ https://in.finance.yahoo.com/photos/indian-ceos-leading-majo...
- fesja 11y agoGoogle, Microsoft, Adobe, Pepsi, Nokia, Mastercard, Deutsche Bank
- chrisper 11y agoIt's funny how Cisco's CEO is not Indian.
- nicolethenerd 11y ago>> Susan is doing a great job as CEO, running a strong brand and driving incredible growth. Is this supposed to say Sundar? Kind of an awkward mistake to make.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- _mikz 11y agohttps://www.google.com/search?q=abc.xyz https://www.google.com/search?q=abc.xyz No Alphabet there.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Skunkleton 11y agoWhen does this all roll under the sheinhardt wig company?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- evanwarfel 11y agoI've always wondered why we don't see more of the studio model (like Pixar) in tech companies. Especially ones focused on innovation -- Thomas Edison didn't just invent a single product, and that trend still influences how GE operates today. It's a bit of a stretch, but with some fuzziness around the boundaries, the idea of an over-arching studio seems to mostly describe YCombinator too.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- scott_karana 11y agoI'm really confused why they wouldn't chose to incorporate a "new Google", and split out all its other ventures, future and existing, as subsidiaries, rather than make a new brand and relegate their previously mainone to subsidiary status, with its own sub-subsidiaries. Legal issues, I presume? Or are Brin and Page just having identity crises? I don't think anyone will care if they see "Foobar, an Alphabet company" in the same way they would if it was Google, in any case.
- bsimpson 11y agoAre there any prominent ventures (aside from YouTube) that aren't being spun out?
- scott_karana 11y agoThe self-driving cars appear to be staying with Google for now. It would also have been nice to see Drive/Docs/Mail split off from Search/Advertising, but that's definitely a pie in the sky dream on my part ;)
- jeffgreco 11y agoI believe self-driving cars are part of Google X, which is now a separate division from Google.
- thought_alarm 11y agohttp://alphabet.com http://alphabet.com is getting hammered right now.
- loso 11y agoI wonder where this puts the robot stuff that Google was doing? I assume it will be under Alphabet as well as Nest.
- coffeebite 11y agoIs Larry Page trolling PG? A day after PG publishes an essay that companies should own the .com version of their names, he renames Google to Alphabet with .xyz as the TLD.
- nbakshi 11y agoFrom his blog: "Unless you're so big that your reputation precedes you, a marginal domain suggests you're a marginal company."
- justincormack 11y agoIts a holding company not a brand.
- awicklander 11y agoAnd T is for Twitter? This seems like it would be the perfect foundation with which acquire twitter right? A twitter acquisition makes sense under Alphabet in a way it doesn't under Google, no?
- briandear 11y agoAnd F is for Facebook and W is for whatever... This restructuring really had little practical value and doesn't change anything -- including plans to acquire or not acquire Twitter. Sure the legals are different but the company isn't.
- rrggrr 11y agoYes. I think the anti-trust case is weaker if Twitter is wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet, instead of Google. On a broader scale I think Google is gearing up to aquire its way out of areas of stunted growth for the company. A number of businesses haven't taken off: Twitter :: Google Real-Time Box :: Google Drive At Enterprise Level 8x8 :: Google Voice (I own none of these stocks)
- ErikAugust 11y agoThey don't even own alphabet.com. Not signaling strength (sarcasm). Also, feel bad for the owners of that domain as it is effectively being DDoS'ed.
- hyperpallium 11y agoAt last, reversing Jobs' advice to combine everything, returning to the original idea of trying lots of things. Maybe 20% time will see a resurgence, too? Bonus: small, separate entities makes it easier to tackle new opportunities (which start small) that wouldn't move the needle for Google - as per Christensen. > We did a lot of things that seemed crazy at the time. Many of those crazy things now have over a billion users, like Google Maps, YouTube, Chrome, and Android. Seems disingenuous, since YouTube and Android (at least) were acquisitions.
- minthd 11y ago>> small, separate entities makes it easier to tackle new opportunities (which start small) that wouldn't move the needle for Google - as per Christensen. They would still need to move the needle for alphabet.
- azernik 11y agoWell, they're keeping combined the things that really can be a coherent product (the new "Google" subsidiary of Alphabet contains Search, YouTube, GMail, Android, etc.) I think this is just them realizing the limits of that Jobs advice - some things just don't make sense together. Apple just showed that the optimal point was a lot farther in the integration direction than anyone else was willing to countenance.
- _delirium 11y agoWon't this make it more awkward to do something like 20% time? It sounds like the experimental stuff will be split out from the core "Google" business, and employees will work for either one or the other.
- hyperpallium 11y ago20% time would be for nascent, university-like pre-startup projects. The conglomerate structure would give them somewhere to go, without needing to fit into search. But I admit, that's quite a leap. An internal-YC would fill the gap, but there's no evidence they're doing that. So I think you've torpedoed my idea.
- xd1936 11y agoI'm cool with it. "Google+ Photos" and "Google+ Hangouts" being separated into "Google Photos" and "Hangouts" helps with clarity. So does splitting Google (Google X, Nest, Google research stuff, Google Ventures) up into purposeful, yet distinct, companies.
- ThrustVectoring 11y agoOne of the big dangers of being Google is using the profitable advertising arm to subsidize unprofitable side-ventures that don't materially affect the advertising arm of the business. This same problem lead to the decline of the Ottoman Empire - they used the profitable Balkans to pick up albatrosses like Egypt and the Levant, and then collapsed when they lost the Balkans and could no longer subsidize ruling those areas.
- idlewords 11y agoYou can't really make this analogy work, because the Ottoman Empire's basic problem was how to handle succession. It's not that they went broke paying for pyramid maintenance. This parallel will be more apt if Alphabet board members start constantly strangling each other with silken cords, and the company develops a mercenary slave class that dominates decisions over who runs what division. Time will tell!
- Symmetry 11y agoThose mercenary slaves were actually a big part of why the Ottomans did so well to start with. When they boys were taken they were given exams and the 10% that did the best became bureaucrats in a sort of version of the Chinese system. Exam based bureaucracy is a Big Deal when you're competing with aristocracies. But eventually offices became hereditary and the normal sort of Chinese late dynastic rot set in.
- kloncks 11y agoWhat made egypt and the levant albatrosses? Source? I'd love to learn more.
- ThrustVectoring 11y agoI could be remembering things incorrectly. It's essentially geopolitical - they're far from the Ottomon's economic core, and don't have free capital from navigable rivers through arable land (like the Danube gives the Balkans). I unfortunately don't remember any sources for this, I just lifted the analogy.
- djhworld 11y agoon the one hand, cool, on the other, it just seems like Google has gone up it's own arse. I mean, alphabet? really?
- suprgeek 11y agoAll of the announcement makes sense except the part where the Conglomerate is the one that is trading on the market. Are the hived-off business separate in any sense if at earnings time everything sinks or swims together? the most logical move would be to trade the new GOOG
- ChuckMcM 11y agoWow, they are doing letters? Really? Letters? Hey is Eric Schmidt still in the building somewhere? Ask him how well Planets worked out for Sun Microsystems. Interesting strategy, hard to second guess from the outside of course. Sun's motivation was to figure out whether the other parts of the company could stand on their own[1], it also makes it less fiscally complicated to discharge an entire group into the void. Think HP selling off the Agilent half of itself. Generally though this sort of move is a way of containing and then "fixing" cost problems. Divestiture is so much easier once you've created the framework of a whole organization around each chunk. It can also be weirdly inefficient, at Sun each of the "planets" paid in a sum of money to IT (Bill Raduchel's organization) for "Corporate IT support" except that Corporate IT didn't work for them, they were just the only vendor you could use to get your IT services, so what you ended up with was really crappy IT work that you couldn't shop around for. It was maddening. But the 'collection of companies' design pattern requires either that you have your "service providers" that everyone uses (HR, IT, Legal) which gives little incentive for quality service, or everyone gets their own version which means a lot of excess overhead and duplicated work. I could think of at least two other ways Google could have re-organized without bringing that pain upon them, and as Eric lived through it at Sun as well I'm sure he has an opinion. Oh, and having one of the sub-companies get the world's #3 brand? I wonder how that works out. [1] Answer "No" for SunSoft, "Yes" for Sun Hardware, "No" for Sun Labs.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ChuckMcM 11y agoDon't misunderstand me, it isn't dislike, its amazement. Some things really do well under multiple companies, think BASF or Siemans where the core that holds them is something common to all the sub-companies. But historically tech companies do not prosper in that model, and generally for a similar reason, there isn't anything in common between the companies except maybe there are smart and talented people working there. The original Sun vision was that Sun Hardware would sell SPARC architecture machines running any OS, SunSoft would sell Solaris for any type of hardware, Sun Labs would license their innovative research rights to anyone who wanted to productize them. Except ... Nobody really wanted to run their OS software on Sun hardware because SunSoft had an inside track on what was coming out. Sunsoft couldn't really make Solaris on x86 just as powerful as it was on SPARC because it would undercut Sun's HW arm, and Sun Labs? They could never really license a technology to a Sun competitor without the other two companies vetoing it. The whole reason FirstPerson was created (the shell company that was developing Oak which became Java) was to keep the politics and other constraints off what could be done with the software. And when the group told Sun it was going to ship first on "Chicago" (aka Windows 95), Scott McNealy blew a gasket. Pretty much everyone I've talked to about that decision in depth thought it was a net negative for Sun and that had we had a chance to do it again, they would do something different. And since Eric was right in the middle of that, I would have expected him to advise Larry and Sergei that it wasn't the best choice. And maybe he did, and maybe they have a scheme that will avoid the problems Sun had. I'm surprised though that they chose that route.
- diablosnuevos 11y ago"C is for cookie, that's good enough for me."
- Osmium 11y agoMakes sense. Hopefully this can stabilise the Google brand as something more reliable (fewer products that are launched one day, taken down the next), while still allowing them to experiment. The name is genius too; it suggests that there will be other companies equal to Google's stature one day ("G is for Google, H is for ...another billion dollar company?").
- knes 11y agoIt's almost as if they read "the outsiders"[0] [0] http://www.amazon.com/The-Outsiders-Unconventional-Radically-Blueprint/dp/1422162672 http://www.amazon.com/The-Outsiders-Unconventional-Radically...
- storgendibal 11y agoYes! Both FB and now G are organized this way. Warren Buffet is really something else.
- bitL 11y agoWhen the letters for the new companies run out, will they form kan.ji? ;-)
- silasdavis 11y agoPerhaps this partly pre-empts threats to split up Google's search from 'other businesses', https://recode.net/2015/04/20/eu-competition-commissioner-i-have-no-grudge-against-google/ https://recode.net/2015/04/20/eu-competition-commissioner-i-...
- paragpatelone 11y agoT is for Tesla
- hisabness 11y agois this just an admission that they're trying to monopolize every industry in the world?
- staunch 11y agoThe Google Guys are now VCs.
- cowsandmilk 11y agocough gv.com cough This is not venture capital.
- staunch 11y agoLarry and Sergey never had anything to do with Google Ventures. It was intentionally kept separate and managed by Bill Maris. It operates on a $100m+ a year fund. Alphabet, Inc will be operated by the two Google Guys with billions in funding. > We will rigorously handle capital allocation and work to make sure each business is executing well. We'll also make sure we have a great CEO for each business, and we’ll determine their compensation. They're venture capitalists in all but name.
- igorgue 11y agoThey gonna fail cause they don't own the .com ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- jafitc 11y agoHow can I upvote this to heaven? Made my day :-) I could write that I spilled my coffee, except I don't drink coffee.
- anjc 11y agoI wonder how it'll affect their SERP ranking
- puranjay 11y agoIt's not an aged domain, so it'll tank in the SERPs. I can offer $50 for it. Payment via Paypal ;)
- justinsingh 11y ago"Unless you're so big that your reputation precedes you."
- reneberlin 11y agoGoogle will do no evil - we know, because we've been told so long (tax trickeries excluded). But what will Alphabet be allowed to do?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- untog 11y agoI doubt that very much.
- mrslx 11y agoteam prob had a hiring freeze. very typical.
- mkehrt 11y agoNo, that's normal for Google. It's totally bizarre.
- seattle_spring 11y agoYeah, not sure what they were thinking. I was ready to make a switch and Google wasn't necessarily my top choice, so I just went with a competitor.
- reneberlin 11y agoI am sure this has nothing to do with the plans the EU has with regulations. Nothing.
- misterbwong 11y agoThis sounds a lot like Berkshire Hathaway's structure. Buffet + Munger at the top, mostly as advisers and fund managers, with individual companies given autonomy. I like it but it all depends on whether Larry & Sergey can hire well.
- stephen 11y agoI was thinking the same thing; the difference is that Buffet & Munger bought existing companies that were already financially strong/had proven business models, and tried to leave their existing management (with a proven track record in that industry) in place. This seems more like Sergey & Brin going to play in non-Google industries with unproven business models that they are experimenting in. (I'm likely being very naive & unfair; obviously they're very smart and wouldn't do this on a whim.) Either way, Alphabet definitely sounds fun. It will be interesting to see how it works out.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y agoThe day I call Google "Alphabet" is the day I refer to the rapper as "Snoop Lion."
- rrss1122 11y agoYou would be way late on that. Even he dropped Snoop Lion.
- wallzz 11y agoThey just changed the name of the global entity, I wonder why people are surprised by this move, I think nothing will change for the users or in the company, they will just try to create next companies by filling the letters of their alphabet which is a silly move.
- reneberlin 11y agoI'd like to know what margin did the namefinding-company get paid for this extraordinary creation. And who owns all these super simple domains in all the .tlds. And what will they get paid for to let them own them? "Example" was under the near winners but didn't succeed. I am waiting for the artworks to see for "alphabet" in RGBA/cmyk/svg.
- mrwilliamchang 11y agoSounds like Alphabet is setup to do lots of major acquisitions. Game changer for tech ecosystem.
- mtgx 11y agoWill Alphabet buy Apple? (with the trillions it will make from Planetary Resources, which I assume will incorporate as well eventually). Apple even has a letter reserved for it - The A in Alphabet.
- empyrical 11y agoI thought the A might end up being Android? (though it doesnt seem as if Android has split off from Google yet)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- mohaps 11y agoha! Any problem in Software Engineering can be solved by adding another layer of abstraction! :D
- storgendibal 11y agoLOL!
- reneberlin 11y agoalphabet.com needs a good spam-filter now. Maybe google could help them out?
- tacone 11y agoWhat's N for? update: downvoters got the joke :-)
- TheCoreh 11y agoNintendo. Just imagine if they announced that acquisition, hahaha
- chetanahuja 11y agoActually reading the first few paragraphs of the form 8(K) was more illuminating than the blogpost. "Under the new operating structure, its main Google business will include search, ads, maps, apps, YouTube and Android and the related technical infrastructure (the “Google business”)" "In connection with the new operating structure and upon completion of the Alphabet Merger (as defined below), Larry Page will become the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Alphabet, Sergey Brin will become the President of Alphabet, Eric E. Schmidt will become the Executive Chairman of Alphabet, Ruth Porat will become the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Alphabet and David C. Drummond will become the Senior Vice President, Corporate Development, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary of Alphabet. Larry, Sergey, Eric and David will transition to these roles from their respective roles at Google, whereas Ruth will also retain her role as the CFO of Google." http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000128877615000039/a20150810form8-k.htm http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/0001288776150...
- DonHopkins 11y agoSo if Larry Page is King Azaz of Dictionopolis, then who is his mortal enemy, the Mathemagician of Digitopolis? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_Tollbooth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_Tollbooth
- yRetsyM 11y agoI find it also interesting the non - Google companies: Businesses such as Calico, Nest, and Fiber, as well as its investing arms, such as Google Ventures and Google Capital, and incubator projects, such as Google X, will be managed separately from the Google business. Fiber is the most notable to me - seems they see this as more than an experiment and are looking to expand. YouTube not separating is an interesting one to me, I expected that to be separate.
- tenoman 11y agoI think the idea was to keep anything related to ad revenue all together under Sundar, and Youtube is definitely a part of that.
- shogun21 11y agoWith all their existing products/acquisitions, Alphabet will soon run out of letters!
- oneJob 11y agocan't wait to see the updated privacy terms
- bound008 11y agohttp://abc.wtf http://abc.wtf -> http://bing.com http://bing.com
- timrpeterson 11y agoThat's amazing, better than the hooli.xyz Easter egg mentioned elsewhere in the thread.
- cpeterso 11y agoabc.wtf looks like it really is Microsoft: http://whois.domaintools.com/abc.wtf http://whois.domaintools.com/abc.wtf Created on 2015-08-10 IP Location United States - Washington - Redmond - Microsoft Corporation ASN United States AS8075 MICROSOFT-CORP-MSN-AS-BLOCK - Microsoft Corporation
- HappyTypist 11y agoGoogle seriously didn't register abc.wtf? WTF.
- keyle 11y agoRead the whois. NZ is New Zealand, no?
- cpeterso 11y agoGood point. The whois says Wellington, NZ. I don't know if it is related, but Microsoft does have an office in Wellington. :) http://www.microsoft.com/en-nz/contact.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/en-nz/contact.aspx
- Vaanir 11y agoGoogle does not own https://www.alphabet.com/ https://www.alphabet.com/ Thought I'd link this to: http://www.paulgraham.com/name.html http://www.paulgraham.com/name.html
- faithfone 11y agoTo be the person who owns alphabet.com right now...
- bbali 11y agothat website is getting hammered right now
- daniel-levin 11y agoIt seems as though Google (Alphabet) is splitting its business divisions into: 1) Google - a company comprised of reliably profitable products that run at massive scale (search, video, mobile, mail etc), and they know that Sundar Pichai can manage this 2) Everything else - these are high risk ventures with possibly enormous pay-offs. This is a breeding ground for positive black swans which Google are keen to expose themselves too. To borrow Nassim Taleb's nomenclature, Google is splitting into mediocristan (1) (bounded variance - existing products [like YouTube] are predictably profitable) and extremistan (2) (Calico - if a major breakthrough in combating aging related diseases is made it will be both unpredictable and hugely materially beneficial) >> We will rigorously handle capital allocation and work to make sure each business is executing well. This sounds like the business restructuring will allow Sergey and Larry to apply just as much capital as they see fit to the extremistani business divisions. In other words they would like to control their exposure to possible consequential rare events in a simple fashion: by controlling a very simple set of parameters - i.e. how much cash each business division gets.
- sethbannon 11y agoFrom the SEC form making this official, here are the separate companies under Alphabet Inc: Google, Calico, Nest, Fiber, Ventures, Capital, X. Looks like Search / ads, YouTube, Maps, Apps, and Android will stay under Google Inc. http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000128877615000039/a20150810form8-k.htm http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/0001288776150...
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- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- BashiBazouk 11y agoOdd name choice. I would think it would open up all kinds of Trademark problems. Alphabet as a key word in a business name must be pretty widespread and across many industries, both trademarked and not.
- electic 11y agoThe most important part of the 8K is how the merger will happen and how stock will be effected or transformed eventually: “Alphabet will initially be a direct, wholly owned subsidiary of Google. Pursuant to the Alphabet Merger, a newly formed entity (“Merger Sub”), a direct, wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet and an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Google, will merge with and into Google, with Google surviving as a direct, wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet.” http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000128877615000039/a20150810form8-k.htm http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/0001288776150...
- zrail 11y agoIs that the normal way something like this is structured? It's pretty elegant.
- seiji 11y agoYeah, it's normal business weirdness. It's a reverse triangular merger: http://witnesseth.typepad.com/blog/reverse-triangular-merger.html http://witnesseth.typepad.com/blog/reverse-triangular-merger...
- ThomPete 11y agoThis is potentially a very clever move when you put this into the perspective with one of googles major issues of being too dominant. If I was a conspiracy nut I would say this way it's harder for ex. the EU or any other political entity to claim they have any dominant positions as such.
- icebraining 11y agoIt's not. The parts of Google that caused concern to the EC (Search, Shopping and Android) are still under the same company.
- rch 11y agoLooking forward to https://abc.xyz/soup/ https://abc.xyz/soup/
- faithfone 11y agoHey Larry, Sergey. If you need a Z, I've got Zission: http://zission.com http://zission.com. Let's discuss ;)
- xasos 11y agoWow, didn't know this was so popular overseas as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol i.e. Japan Display Inc. is a conglomerate that encompasses the LCD businesses of Sony, Toshiba, and Hitachi
- ewang1 11y agoChaebols are in a league of their own.
- fuzzythinker 11y agoI was really checking if today is April 1st when reading this.
- pasbesoin 11y agoLarry, one nit: It's "have striven". Although these day, I'm guessing "have strived" may be an accepted alternative form.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- carlosgg 11y agoSundar Pichai's 2014 interview with Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/New-sense-of-excitement-in-India-Googles-Sundar-Pichai-says/articleshow/42561195.cms?prtpage=1 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/New-sense-...
- _stephan 11y agoWill the non-Google Alphabet companies still have access to Google's software engineering infrastructure?
- ithkuil 11y agoThey will probably have to "pay" for it. It will make it easier to figure out net gains and losses within each venture. I expect this to increase the reported revenue of Google (infrastructure), as significant costs incur in infrastructure management. On the other hand is also possible that Alphabet companies can use the google's "cloud" infrastructure with a significant discount.
- huac 11y agoGoogle (or now, Alphabet) is an less diversified Berkshire Hathaway with tons of R&D expenditures. I think it's likely that tax benefits from the reorg are the biggest reason for the stock price increases. But it also appears likely that there will be an offering of Alphabet stock in some form so it's curious to see how the value will break out.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- franciscomello 11y agoHere's why I think Google's transformation into Alphabet was not a wise one. As Google cofounder Larry Page, now CEO of the holding company Alphabet, that will have as its main subsidiary Google, the search company, said earlier today: >As Sergey and I wrote in the original founders letter 11 years ago, “Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.” As part of that, we also said that you could expect us to make “smaller bets in areas that might seem very speculative or even strange when compared to our current businesses.” From the start, we’ve always strived to do more, and to do important and meaningful things with the resources we have. Well, if Google wants to keep spending investor money into "speculative" areas, what could be dumber than reporting its financials as "Google: hugely profitable" and "other random stuff: huge cash drain"? It will just make investors all the more sensitive to the fact that Google's search business is basically what makes money, and everything else is - for now, at least - a huge cash drain. Raising awareness to Google's - oops, Alphabet's - business unit's individual financials will attract attention of the likes of Carl Icahn, who's raided Ebay in the past, and who'll engage in open challenging of Page and Brin's capital allocation decisions. It will definitely not compensate for the advantages of having Sundar Pichai take on greater responsibilities as Google chief, etc. Not at all a wise move.
- idlewords 11y agoWhy do they care what Carl Icahn or any other investor thinks? Page and Brin control the voting shares. The biggest risk is bad PR or a public perception of failure, not any substantive challenge.
- sahaj 11y agoInvestors already thought/knew this. Listen to any of the earnings calls from the last year and you'll see what I mean.
- xbmcuser 11y agoIts actually very wise move. Now they can ipo out other businesses to get capital investments for something like Google Fiber without diluting the control they have over Google. This is an extremely good move the more I think about it. They will retain control of the main company but sell shares or give stock options to get talent and capital.
- tdaltonc 11y agoIf android were acquired today, would the really be brought in to the google core?
- reustle 11y agoI think it has to do with how tight Google Services and Android are. Android is less of an operating system and more of a Google services device in your pocket (mail/docs/photos/etc)
- tdaltonc 11y agoSure, but would it have become that if it had been segregated in 'A' after acquisition? Would it have "graduated" into Google proper at some point?
- reustle 11y agoI think they are moving away from grading "into" Google. I get the vibe they want most serious non-related stuff out on its own.
- abcxyz123 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_and_the_Holding_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_and_the_Holding_Co...
- smohnot 11y agoFun game: Name Google products A-Z without looking them up! Here's what I got: Android, Blogger, Chrome, Drive, Earth, Finance, Google, Hangouts, Inbox, Jaiku, Keep, Local, Maps, Now, Offers, Picasa, Questions, Reader (RIP), Search, Translate, U??, Voice, Waze, X Labs, Youtube, Zagat... I couldn't think of anything for U and Jaiku was a bit of a stretch
- tyingq 11y ago>>I couldn't think of anything for U Also a stretch, but... universal analytics or maybe url shortener? (goo.gl)
- blackbeard 11y agoSounds like Google is turning into Umbrella Corporation: http://umbrellacorporation.jp/aboutus.html http://umbrellacorporation.jp/aboutus.html Life sciences, life extension, military, information, telecommunications all under one umbrella company.
- olalonde 11y agoClicking around the website, this is most likely not an actual company but a spoof of the evil conglomerate from the Resident Evil games/films: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Resident_Evil_characters#Umbrella_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Resident_Evil_characte...
- blackbeard 11y agoIt is indeed. That was my point. It's difficult to discern megacorporations from their dystopian film counterparts now.
- fixermark 11y agoThe only difference beteween evil dystopian sci-fi megacorporations and successful life-enhancing megacorporations is that the former are doing it wrong. And you don't see the latter too often in sci-fi these days; I blame the fashion of the time. ;)
- blackbeard 11y agoGood points :)
- EGreg 11y agoCan we apply for the letter Q? http://qbix.com/blog http://qbix.com/blog :-)
- pgroves 11y agoSeems very similar to how Berkshire Hathaway treats it's companies. CEOs run the companies, a small group at the top adds/removes companies. There is one company listed on the stock exchange, etc. It's noteworthy that Berkshire Hathaway refuses to deal with technology companies, while Google is exclusively tech.
- breatheoften 11y agoWhat effect will this have on the mono-repo debate? http://danluu.com/monorepo/ http://danluu.com/monorepo/
- adventured 11y agoThis is Google moving into a structure akin to Berkshire Hathaway, which is something the Google founders have admired for a long time. They're changing into a conglomerate, run with a thin layer of management at the top. Their talk about empowering strong CEOs, and having the subsidiary companies operate independently, is an exact copy of what Buffett does in regards to businesses owned by Berkshire.
- edpichler 11y agoI did not like the name, it remembers me the Amazon original copy (from A to Z). But I like Google company, really well administrated, it's easy to see on the annual release reports. Despite the not so good name, they are doing a great job and the right next step.
- have_faith 11y agoI'm very interested in the effect this will have on the public perception of Google as a company.
- faragon 11y ago"Don't bite off more than you can chew", anyone?
- Mikho 11y agoSo, no "OK Google" any more on Android. It's "OK Alphabet"!
- HugoDaniel 11y agoI read "mad sex" on the cubes of their alphabet landing page :/ is this on purpose or am i that much of a pervert ?
- a-dub 11y agoFour months ago, Larry asked his assistant to order him a new X1 Carbon 3rd Edition. 1237 web form fields filled later, 27 phone calls, 122 submit buttons, 17 excuses, 4 customs delays and 1 CPU fan that would never kick into low gear later, he still had no laptop and he'd had enough. "No... No.... NO!!@ NO MORE. NO MORE PAPERWORK. NO MORE WEBFORMS. NO MORE MOMA. NO MORE REPORTS. NO MORE STANFORD BRATS. NO MORE METRICS. NO MORE DATA. NO MORE MOTHERFUCKING EIGENBULLSHIT. NO MORE OF THIS FUCKING NULLSPACE. I DON'T WANT A NEW LAPTOP, I WANT A NEW FUCKING COMPANY.... A SIMPLE ONE... ABC. ABC.XYZ."
- slantedview 11y agoTo the extent that shareholders are driving pressure to separate the experimental bets with the more stable parts of the business, I'm not sure that I understand the point of replacing Google's stock/ticker with a new one. Any insight here?
- jonnycowboy 11y agoDoes Google robotics fall under ventures/capital or Google X?
- madhurbehl 11y agoA is for Automobiles. H is for Healthcare. D is for Defence. E is for Energy. M is for Medicine. R is for Robotics This will become the Umbrella corporation from the resident evil fame :P
- dotori 11y agoAlphabet (the main company) B Calico (focused on longevity) Capital (investment) D E Fiber Google (now led by Sundar Pichai and includes search, ads, maps, apps, YouTube, and Android) H I J K Life Sciences ("that works on the glucose-sensing contact lens") M Nest O P Q R S T U Ventures (investment) W X lab ("which incubates new efforts like Wing, our drone delivery effort") Y Z
- tmpforareason 11y agoCool! I will make sure my new startup starts with a letter which is not used yet. Will we see companies changing their names for possible acquisitions.
- kevindeasis 11y agoA is for Alphabet Android AI B is for Boston Dynamics C is for Calico D is for Defense E is for Evil / Eden Project F is for Fiber G is for Google H is for Haptics I is for Intercontinental J is for Justice K is for Kardashev-1 L is for Lifelike Experiments M is for Memetics N is for Nest O is for Open Source P is for Paige Q is for Quantum R is for Revitalization S is for Superintelligence T is for Terraforming U is for Umbrella V is for Variable Ethics W is for Web Driver Torso X is for X Labs Y is for Yotta Scale Computing YOutube Z is for Zombies
- endergen 11y agoThis is just some razzle dazzle to make it less jarring that Google's founders want to focus on their hobbies and not run Google proper.
- sethd 11y agoYet another web page that requires JavaScript to be enabled simply to read some text: https://abc.xyz https://abc.xyz
- xbmcuser 11y agoAplphabet is likely to ipo Google fiber now as it is something that needs big capital investments.
- seanbo 11y agoam I the only one who wants to hurl reading this?
- JoeCoder_ 11y agoAnd A is for Anti-Trust avoidance
- yashap 11y agoI wonder if part of this is to make it easier to kill the side businesses if they fail, since these ventures are inherently very risky, and require people with very different skills than normal at Google. Say 1000 people are working on Calico, but it ultimately fails, and there isn't a natural spot for them in Google anymore. If they were all Google employees, this turns into "massive layoffs at Google." Now it's just "Alphabet folds Calico business", which sounds less bad (and possibly even makes layoffs easier? Don't know, IANAL).
- asurty 11y agoIs it me or is alphabet.com timing out? Can't wait to see what they put up there. :D
- beedogs 11y agoS is for shark. J is for jumping.
- jgalt212 11y agoI fail to see this as anything but some preemptive move against European Union findings/rulings.
- xbmcuser 11y agoThey are separating web and tech companies from its other companies. Google might be a wholly owned subsidiary but other companies like Google fiber they could probably now IPO separately to get the capital investments needed to expand without diluting the google shareholder value or loose control. Today Alphabet has some good things coming up but as they are tied to google they are unable to attract talent as they are not expecting much growth overall as these days as most employees are expecting stock options but those are not worth much if the upside is so little. Getting stock options in a Alphabet owned subsidiary that is worth maybe less than a billion but has the upside of being worth 100 billion. We are looking at the beginning of the Umbrella corporation.
- 31reasons 11y agoA for Apple! hmm does that mean they are going to acquire Apple ? :)
- overgard 11y agoGoogle you're drunk, go home. Ok more seriously as a customer: uh, what the hell just happened? "Hey you know that great brand we had? Yeah lets pivot towards ... letters. That children learn"
- overgard 11y agoSo I normally don't comment on downvotes because, you know, whatever, but I'm really looking forward to the posts about how this is a great idea. "Hey you know how we had this brand that became synonymous with looking up all information ever? Let's abandon that to be associated with, uh, letters." Seriously it's not like "google" was a damaged brand. I'm not going to "alphabet" shit.
- isbadawi 11y agoFrom TFA: "I should add that we are not intending for this to be a big consumer brand with related products--the whole point is that Alphabet companies should have independence and develop their own brands."
- overgard 11y agoSo basically, they're becoming the most generic sounding holding company possible, because people LOVE generic holding companies. I know "lovability" isn't exactly a goal for companies, but if berkshire hathaway became "abcdefg" I would make fun of them equally.
- edias 11y agoThis isn't a re-branding. Google will stay Google.
- overgard 11y agoThen why bother with the rename? (I know the answer. Just saying.)
- archagon 11y agoFunny, I would have expected a better hashing algorithm from the likes of Google. ;)
- motyar 11y agoSorry, but isnt .xyz for nsfw sites?
- Noctem 11y ago.xyz is intended to be generic; you're probably thinking of .xxx.
- motyar 11y agoYes. I was wrong
- CraftThatBlock 11y agoThat's .xxx
- motyar 11y agoOh! thanks. I was wrong
- smitherfield 11y agoThe cynic's translation is that the Goog board is cutting off the wackier ventures (sorry - "making them self-financing") and kicking Larry and Sergei upstairs.
- orionblastar 11y agoAlphabet is just a way that Google can control its liabilities. Each subdivision can be closed off or sold if it has trouble. Not take down the other subdivisions when that happens. Oracle is suing over Android using Java APIs, Alphabet can move Android to its own subdivision if they lose the lawsuit and close it off or sell it off and then develop a new mobile OS to replace it.
- akshatpradhan 11y agoI personally think they did this because Sergey Brin and Larry Page were getting bored with day-to-day Google operations but wanted to remain at the top. They can't just shift their focus on the new toys they're building like Robotics, Fiber, Vehicles, etc. So best bet, name Sundar Pichai as the new Google CEO, put Google under Alphabet, become the new CEO of Alphabet, and that allows them to get rid of day-to-day Google search operations and focus on their shiny new toys.
- dspeyer 11y agoBored and overwhelmed. At least a few years ago Larry really wanted to understand everything Google did. It wasn't possible, and the attempt was distorting things. This is a better solution.
- calewis 11y agoG is for tax evasion.
- grayclhn 11y agoI wasn't expecting a "thanks for joining our incredible journey" post from google.* * http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/
- wbillingsley 11y agoIs it just the cynic in me that thinks "We wanted to move Larry and Sergei upstairs, but Eric's in that seat; so we had to create a cool new upstairs to move them to"?
- Animats 11y agoIt's too early to tell what this means. It may be a first step to spinning off some of the non-core businesses. Who gets Google's airport in Mountain View?
- pitchups 11y agoLarry Page has been described as possibly the most ambitious CEO on the planet, and this announcement certainly bears that out. Alphabet represents an ambitious attempt at reinventing Google. Possibly fraught with risk - but again Larry seems to be following his own advice of "having a healthy disregard for the impossible". So they are attempting to do something crazy - break up and restructure the company rather than stay comfortable.
- tmpforareason 11y agoI bought samaltman.xyz, let me know if you need it.
- tmpforareason 11y agoI bought samaltman.xyz, let me know if you need it.
- hamza001 11y agohttp://googler700.blogspot.com/ http://googler700.blogspot.com/
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- pietaalpha 11y agoNow there are two names one for earth (ads) and one for moon (riskier things), earth gives money for moon projects.
- skybison 11y agoGoogle, you need to watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTzJ09tqLjY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTzJ09tqLjY #alphabet :) :)
- hessenwolf 11y agoAlphabet just sounds evil, a bit like Umbrella Corp, E-Corp, etc. I am not a fan of the name.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ucaetano 11y agoYou can now think of Alphabet/Google as the Berkshire Hathaway of technology. While BH uses money from a cash cow business (insurance) to build a portfolio of companies that look like the established economy, and manage those companies in an exceptional way, improving individual returns while reducing overall unsystematic risk (effectively using good management to move beyond the Markowitz efficiency frontier), Google will use money from a cash cow business (Ads) to build a portfolio of companies the look like the new economy, using effective management in the same way.
- Yuioup 11y agoThe guy who owns the @alphabet twitter handle is going to be rich.
- MrBra 11y agoYes, but what's there to upvote like so?
- smoyer 11y agoCall me cynical but I'm of the opinion that this will help them continue operating the non-Internet businesses in places where the Internet businesses are facing regulation and/or sanctions.
- anon4 11y agoWhat is Alphabet? Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. .... Alphabet is about businesses prospering through strong leaders and independence. In general, our model is to have a strong CEO who runs each business, with Sergey and me in service to them as needed. We will rigorously handle capital allocation and work to make sure each business is executing well. We'll also make sure we have a great CEO for each business, and we’ll determine their compensation. The King and his vassals, ladies and gentlemen.
- catnaroek 11y agoMy email is abc.deaf.xyz@gmail.com. I'm pretty sure they used my email as a source of inspiration for the name of their company. And they aren't giving me my fair share! (Just joking. Except for my email, that part is 100% true.)
- damcedami 11y agoNow every school book which have "abc" as hypothetical company name should be changed.
- teddyuk 11y agoI don't understand why everyone thinks this is a bad idea, it is great - run the profitable business as a separate business, use the profits to invest in fun things and also promote people to CEO instead of watching them go CEO somewhere else (yahoo etc). It is a win win for everyone.
- anuraj 11y agoThe diversification seems to be going in the way of the conglomerate - and conglomerate tax shall apply - whether it is Google or not! Hope it does not turn dystopian though.
- f00644 11y agoWill this still be based as a US registered company then?
- allencoin 11y agoOh, I get it. Alphabet. Alpha Bet. They're making a Bet on the Alpha versions of these products.
- dspeyer 11y agoWhat do we know about Sundar? It sounds like he's really taking over Google. Is he likely to be up to it?
- normloman 11y agoHere's another possibility: Google's taking a page from the Innovators Dilemma, and moving their disruptive projects away from corporate meddling. Most innovative projects die at big corps because they don't fit into the companies existing business model. Walling-off self driving cars and contact lenses from Google's core business could give it the room it needs to grow (before some VP of whatever cuts the project for not being profitable).
- sethammons 11y agoThe first thing that went through my mind (with some additional work, and all that is needed is illustrations and a publisher..): A is for Asynchronous, the way our code should be B is for Beta, the first stage of our code the user will see C is for Capacity, for this planning helps our hardware not fail, planning capacity helps our product meet our users at scale . D is for Datagram, which you may not get from me E is for E-tag, for caching is key F is for Freedom, the state information wants to achieve, follow information through history if you want to believe . G is for Google, the advertising and indexing whale H is for Hystrix, because Netflix Tools are for scale I is for the Internet, for without it, many start-ups would fail I is also for iPhone who's apparently in jail . J is for Javascript, with a new frameworks each week K is for Kill, because scripts can misbehave and memory can leak L is for LifeSize, for meetings about meetings must be M is for Metadata, because tracking in bulk is (mumble, mumble, something, something), look! "privacy!" . N is for NoSQL, for relational data is dead O is for Octocat, who houses our code so it is not in our head P is for a Penguin named tux Q is for Quiet, lost to the the tide of the open office flux . R is for Rabbit, because some problems require a Queue S is for Secure, for we have our our user's data to lose T is for the terminal, for how else can we see ascii Star Wars U is for UTF-8, who's lack of handling makes bugs in our source . V is for Vitesse, never has mysql DBs been so easy to scale W is for the 5 Whys, that guides us in post-motems when we fail X is for Executable, which chmod can help our script to be Y is for YCombinator, for many a start up, encubators are key . And Z is for Zsh, not your ordinary shell These are the letters, remember them well These are the letters, from A to Z These are the letters, next time will you please say them with me? [edit: format, typo]
- acaloiar 11y agoYesterday upon seeing the headline "Google Forms new Company" elsewhere, I assumed that Google spun their Google Forms product off into a company named Alphabet. I was profoundly confused as to how Google Forms necessitated an entire new business entity. I'm not a proud man.
- franciscomello 11y agoGreat question now that GOOG/GOOGL is on the spotlight: Why should any investor pay a multiple (expensive, by the way) and get exposure to Google Ventures/Google Capital/Google's other crazy ideas, when he/she can just invest in Sequoia, A16Z, KKR, and other VC, growth equity, or private equity managers at book value?