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Google has a bunch of "PR" projects whose sole purpose is to distract the public, their own employees, and, importantly, potential employees from the fact that

Google has a bunch of "PR" projects whose sole purpose is to distract the public, their own employees, and, importantly, potential employees from the fact that they're 95% an advertising company. Where would you rather work, at a company which does ads, or a company that does autonomous cars, internet balloons and AI? Never mind that only about 2% of googlers actually get to do that. Most of the rest are just "temporarily embarrassed".

Houshalter 9y ago
Every large tech company has very diverse interests. I mean even Microsoft doesn't just make Windows, they bought minecraft. They all know that technology changes quickly and tech companies can die overnight. Most don't even do what they started as - IBM doesn't make punch card tabulating machines, apple makes phones now, and Google does tons of stuff other than search. Imagine if Adblock became ubiquitous, Google's advertising business would be fucked. But many of their investments could adapt and live on. I makes perfect sense for Google to invest in robotics. They are already heavily invested in AI which will benefit robotics immensely. And with the coming robotics revolution, whatever companies get in early stand to make billions.
- throwaway-1209 9y ago
  No, they could not "adapt". Ballmer's "one trick pony" comment is as true today as it was years ago. They derive the vast majority (90%+ iirc) of their revenue from ads. If ads are fucked, Google will be fucked too.
  - munificent 9y ago
    If ads are fucked, entire segments of the modern world economy are fucked.
    - throwaway-1209 9y ago
      The economy will be fine. Maybe even better than before. People will just figure out how to charge for content on the internet, and everyone will be all right.
  - Houshalter 9y ago
    I believe they now make a ton from Android, especially app sales. But regardless they could still adapt by adopting a subscription model for search, youtube, gmail, etc. Ads just happen to be the best way of monetizing those services today.
    - throwaway-1209 9y ago
      Not if others are willing to offer worse versions of those services for free. And Microsoft/Amazon are perfectly willing, since they're already getting paid for other things.
sbov 9y ago
You seem to denigrate being an "advertising company" as if all the work is exceedingly simplistic. I have a friend who recently moved into their ad division from a "sexier" one, and he said the amount of specialization being used in there is mind boggling. Which completely makes sense at the scale of Google, where some random team boosting your ad revenue by "only" .05% can be a worthwhile endeavor.
- throwaway-1209 9y ago
  Oh no, it's not simplistic. I actually worked on it at Google for a few years. The backends are actually quite impressive and Rube Goldberg like. It's just not what starry eyed fresh grads want to do when they join, and it's most definitely something that Google wants to be way in the background outside shareholder meetings.

Houshalter 9y ago

Every large tech company has very diverse interests. I mean even Microsoft doesn't just make Windows, they bought minecraft. They all know that technology changes quickly and tech companies can die overnight. Most don't even do what they started as - IBM doesn't make punch card tabulating machines, apple makes phones now, and Google does tons of stuff other than search. Imagine if Adblock became ubiquitous, Google's advertising business would be fucked. But many of their investments could adapt and live on. I makes perfect sense for Google to invest in robotics. They are already heavily invested in AI which will benefit robotics immensely. And with the coming robotics revolution, whatever companies get in early stand to make billions.

throwaway-1209 9y ago
No, they could not "adapt". Ballmer's "one trick pony" comment is as true today as it was years ago. They derive the vast majority (90%+ iirc) of their revenue from ads. If ads are fucked, Google will be fucked too.
- munificent 9y ago
  If ads are fucked, entire segments of the modern world economy are fucked.
  - throwaway-1209 9y ago
    The economy will be fine. Maybe even better than before. People will just figure out how to charge for content on the internet, and everyone will be all right.
- Houshalter 9y ago
  I believe they now make a ton from Android, especially app sales. But regardless they could still adapt by adopting a subscription model for search, youtube, gmail, etc. Ads just happen to be the best way of monetizing those services today.
  - throwaway-1209 9y ago
    Not if others are willing to offer worse versions of those services for free. And Microsoft/Amazon are perfectly willing, since they're already getting paid for other things.

sbov 9y ago

You seem to denigrate being an "advertising company" as if all the work is exceedingly simplistic. I have a friend who recently moved into their ad division from a "sexier" one, and he said the amount of specialization being used in there is mind boggling. Which completely makes sense at the scale of Google, where some random team boosting your ad revenue by "only" .05% can be a worthwhile endeavor.

throwaway-1209 9y ago
Oh no, it's not simplistic. I actually worked on it at Google for a few years. The backends are actually quite impressive and Rube Goldberg like. It's just not what starry eyed fresh grads want to do when they join, and it's most definitely something that Google wants to be way in the background outside shareholder meetings.