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> Alphabet is doing all of these things and more though no? With more much success too from what I can garner. Apple has more diversified revenue than Alphabet

> Alphabet is doing all of these things and more though no? With more much success too from what I can garner. Apple has more diversified revenue than Alphabet. Why would you say Alphabet is more successful?. All this tells me is that Apple thinks long and hard before publicizing what it's working on, they won't show us prototypes. > Waymo is the defacto number one leader in self-driving, whereas Apple’s self driving unit is having huge issues internally with getting anything done. ALL of Apple's reported problems had to do with the MAKING of a car, not autonomous systems. People just don't get this distinction. We will know how far their system is at the end of this month when the DMV releases their disengagement report. By the way, recent developments indicate that Apple is back to building an electric self-driving car instead of a self-driving platform.

partingshots 8y ago
So far I’ve listed Waymo and Verily. What about, Loon - https://loon.co/ https://loon.co/ Dandelion - https://dandelionenergy.com/ https://dandelionenergy.com/ Wing - https://x.company/wing/ https://x.company/wing/ Chronicle - https://chronicle.security/ https://chronicle.security/ Malta - https://blog.x.company/introducing-malta-81bceb559061 https://blog.x.company/introducing-malta-81bceb559061 Apple is almost 100% definitively not working on a molten salt energy storage solution I can promise you. And the reason is because it’s just not in it’s corporate structure or culture. Far too constrained / trapped in it’s niche to expand outwards into such a vastly different market.
- nthuser 8y ago
  Again, Apple has a more diversified revenue stream than Alphabet and it is growing. Contrary to what you are trying to imply, Apple is actually more successful than Alphabet. The difference is they don't tell the world about their internal projects.
  - jean-cs 8y ago
    > Again, Apple has a more diversified revenue stream than Alphabet and it is growing. Based on what?
    - nthuser 8y ago
      iPhone sales generate 59% of Apple's revenue, while ads generate 86% of Alphabet's revenue.
      - joshuamorton 8y ago
        Hardware sales generate 80% of apples revenue. You can't combine all ads (google vs. other domains) and not combine different hardware types.
        nthuser 8y ago
        Even if we did it that way, Apple still comes out ahead. Also, that 86% is basically from Google Search ads and YouTube. YouTube's quarterly revenue is estimated to be just under $4 billion. That puts Google Search ads at around 72%, which is still higher than the iPhone's 59%. The notion that Alphabet's "other" projects succeeded while Apple's languished is completely baseless.
        joshuamorton 8y ago
        It also includes ad network ads on non google properties (double click and such), which is arguably more diverse than iPhone an iPad. Google's last quarterly report says 24bn in revenue from Google properties, and ~5bn from non-google properties. If we add in that YT is a separate property too, we get ~60% from Google, ~12% from youtube, ~15% from network, ~14% from hardware/android/cloud. (I work at Google, but I am using public figures from the Q3 investor relations document and your analyst number for YT revenue).
- scarface74 8y ago
  And none of these are profitable. A “successful” product for a profit making company is one that makes money..... Google hasn’t shown an ability to ptofitably sell anything but ads. According to numbers that came out during the Oracle lawsuit, even Android has only made Google $31 Billion since its inception.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    >Google hasn’t shown an ability to ptofitably sell anything but ads. The $31B revenue would be huge for almost any company. The magnitude of Google's largest cash cow, a glowing golden cow towering over the farm house, makes their normal-sized livestock look small. Because everything is so insignificant compared to advertisements, Google has killed projects that could be the entire product of a sustainable smaller company.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      $31 billion revenue of 8 years? To put that in context, that’s about the same amount of revenue from Apple’s non iPhone business in one quarter. https://sixcolors.com/post/2018/11/reminder-apple-financial-results-released-today/ https://sixcolors.com/post/2018/11/reminder-apple-financial-... And that’s $31 billion in revenue not profit. The profit over 8 years is only $21 billion. https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/21/10810834/android-generated-31-billion-revenue-google-oracle https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/21/10810834/android-generate...
      - whatshisface 8y ago
        How many companies make 2.6B/year in profit? Rather, how many startups sell for over 1B? Comparing it to another gigantic business is missing the point in the same way that comparing it against ads is. Google has had many giant successes that only appear small when juxtaposed against unimaginably enormous successes.
        scarface74 8y ago
        So besides Android, what other profitable product have they had? Rumors are that YouTube is still break even.
- deanCommie 8y ago
  > Malta’s solution is to store electricity as heat in high temperature molten salt and cold in a low temperature liquid for days, or even weeks, until it’s needed. The key insight behind Malta is that electricity can be stored as heat in high temperature molten salt and cold in a low temperature liquid for days, or even weeks, until it’s needed. Does nobody proof read these things before they get published?
  - lawrenceyan 8y ago
    The grammar is perfectly correct though I think? Perhaps this portion is what confuses you: stores electricity as heat in "the form of a combination of a" high temperature molten salt and cold in a low temperature liquid. This would be an explicit wording which might help to clarify things, but is not used due to redundancy.
    - deanCommie 8y ago
      The 2 consecutive sentence both contain the identical LONG fragment "as heat in high temperature molten salt and cold in a low temperature liquid for days, or even weeks, until it’s needed"
- sharcerer 8y ago
  And you didn't even mention GV, CapitalG and other investment arms. Well forget the others, I am surprised that Google's investments into Oscar, Magic Leap, SpaceX, Impossible, Slack, Stripe,Lyft,Uber, Snap, AirBnb aren't talked about much. I think these can be counted as successful, guaranteed future cash troves. In 10 years, all these are going to be worth a lot. Google should hold onto these. It's like a mini Berkshire hathaway is brewing up. Some links: https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/17/a-peek-inside-alphabets-investing-universe/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/17/a-peek-inside-alphabets-in... http://www.gv.com/portfolio/ http://www.gv.com/portfolio/ https://capitalg.com/companies/ https://capitalg.com/companies/
sah2ed 8y ago
> By the way, recent developments indicate that Apple is back to building an electric self-driving car instead of a self-driving platform. This is the correct approach, yet a lot of people still haven’t internalized this subtle distinction. For a self-driving platform to deliver on the promise of being more reliable than a human driver, it has to constantly monitor two environments: its internal environment and its external environment, but most discussions dwell on the external. External environment failure in the worst case scenario can lead to loss of life. OTOH, internal environment failure can lead to internal inconsistency and in the worst case, a machine shutdown; but because cars share the road with other road users, a sudden failure in one car can lead to multiple car accidents and in a worst case scenario, several lives lost. In a way, the failure outcomes are identical. An electric car is far less complex than an ICE car meaning there are fewer moving parts and subsystems whose state needs to be kept track of constantly. This is where electric drivetrains hold a lot of promise: a low complexity machine can be made more reliable at a lower cost than a high complexity machine.

partingshots 8y ago

So far I’ve listed Waymo and Verily. What about, Loon - https://loon.co/ https://loon.co/ Dandelion - https://dandelionenergy.com/ https://dandelionenergy.com/ Wing - https://x.company/wing/ https://x.company/wing/ Chronicle - https://chronicle.security/ https://chronicle.security/ Malta - https://blog.x.company/introducing-malta-81bceb559061 https://blog.x.company/introducing-malta-81bceb559061 Apple is almost 100% definitively not working on a molten salt energy storage solution I can promise you. And the reason is because it’s just not in it’s corporate structure or culture. Far too constrained / trapped in it’s niche to expand outwards into such a vastly different market.

nthuser 8y ago
Again, Apple has a more diversified revenue stream than Alphabet and it is growing. Contrary to what you are trying to imply, Apple is actually more successful than Alphabet. The difference is they don't tell the world about their internal projects.
- jean-cs 8y ago
  > Again, Apple has a more diversified revenue stream than Alphabet and it is growing. Based on what?
  - nthuser 8y ago
    iPhone sales generate 59% of Apple's revenue, while ads generate 86% of Alphabet's revenue.
    - joshuamorton 8y ago
      Hardware sales generate 80% of apples revenue. You can't combine all ads (google vs. other domains) and not combine different hardware types.
      - nthuser 8y ago
        Even if we did it that way, Apple still comes out ahead. Also, that 86% is basically from Google Search ads and YouTube. YouTube's quarterly revenue is estimated to be just under $4 billion. That puts Google Search ads at around 72%, which is still higher than the iPhone's 59%. The notion that Alphabet's "other" projects succeeded while Apple's languished is completely baseless.
        joshuamorton 8y ago
        It also includes ad network ads on non google properties (double click and such), which is arguably more diverse than iPhone an iPad. Google's last quarterly report says 24bn in revenue from Google properties, and ~5bn from non-google properties. If we add in that YT is a separate property too, we get ~60% from Google, ~12% from youtube, ~15% from network, ~14% from hardware/android/cloud. (I work at Google, but I am using public figures from the Q3 investor relations document and your analyst number for YT revenue).
scarface74 8y ago
And none of these are profitable. A “successful” product for a profit making company is one that makes money..... Google hasn’t shown an ability to ptofitably sell anything but ads. According to numbers that came out during the Oracle lawsuit, even Android has only made Google $31 Billion since its inception.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  >Google hasn’t shown an ability to ptofitably sell anything but ads. The $31B revenue would be huge for almost any company. The magnitude of Google's largest cash cow, a glowing golden cow towering over the farm house, makes their normal-sized livestock look small. Because everything is so insignificant compared to advertisements, Google has killed projects that could be the entire product of a sustainable smaller company.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    $31 billion revenue of 8 years? To put that in context, that’s about the same amount of revenue from Apple’s non iPhone business in one quarter. https://sixcolors.com/post/2018/11/reminder-apple-financial-results-released-today/ https://sixcolors.com/post/2018/11/reminder-apple-financial-... And that’s $31 billion in revenue not profit. The profit over 8 years is only $21 billion. https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/21/10810834/android-generated-31-billion-revenue-google-oracle https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/21/10810834/android-generate...
    - whatshisface 8y ago
      How many companies make 2.6B/year in profit? Rather, how many startups sell for over 1B? Comparing it to another gigantic business is missing the point in the same way that comparing it against ads is. Google has had many giant successes that only appear small when juxtaposed against unimaginably enormous successes.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        So besides Android, what other profitable product have they had? Rumors are that YouTube is still break even.
deanCommie 8y ago
> Malta’s solution is to store electricity as heat in high temperature molten salt and cold in a low temperature liquid for days, or even weeks, until it’s needed. The key insight behind Malta is that electricity can be stored as heat in high temperature molten salt and cold in a low temperature liquid for days, or even weeks, until it’s needed. Does nobody proof read these things before they get published?
- lawrenceyan 8y ago
  The grammar is perfectly correct though I think? Perhaps this portion is what confuses you: stores electricity as heat in "the form of a combination of a" high temperature molten salt and cold in a low temperature liquid. This would be an explicit wording which might help to clarify things, but is not used due to redundancy.
  - deanCommie 8y ago
    The 2 consecutive sentence both contain the identical LONG fragment "as heat in high temperature molten salt and cold in a low temperature liquid for days, or even weeks, until it’s needed"
sharcerer 8y ago
And you didn't even mention GV, CapitalG and other investment arms. Well forget the others, I am surprised that Google's investments into Oscar, Magic Leap, SpaceX, Impossible, Slack, Stripe,Lyft,Uber, Snap, AirBnb aren't talked about much. I think these can be counted as successful, guaranteed future cash troves. In 10 years, all these are going to be worth a lot. Google should hold onto these. It's like a mini Berkshire hathaway is brewing up. Some links: https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/17/a-peek-inside-alphabets-investing-universe/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/17/a-peek-inside-alphabets-in... http://www.gv.com/portfolio/ http://www.gv.com/portfolio/ https://capitalg.com/companies/ https://capitalg.com/companies/

sah2ed 8y ago

> By the way, recent developments indicate that Apple is back to building an electric self-driving car instead of a self-driving platform. This is the correct approach, yet a lot of people still haven’t internalized this subtle distinction. For a self-driving platform to deliver on the promise of being more reliable than a human driver, it has to constantly monitor two environments: its internal environment and its external environment, but most discussions dwell on the external. External environment failure in the worst case scenario can lead to loss of life. OTOH, internal environment failure can lead to internal inconsistency and in the worst case, a machine shutdown; but because cars share the road with other road users, a sudden failure in one car can lead to multiple car accidents and in a worst case scenario, several lives lost. In a way, the failure outcomes are identical. An electric car is far less complex than an ICE car meaning there are fewer moving parts and subsystems whose state needs to be kept track of constantly. This is where electric drivetrains hold a lot of promise: a low complexity machine can be made more reliable at a lower cost than a high complexity machine.