3 ms·

Google Executive: No Time to Build, So We Buy

40 points by bakbak 16y ago

tptacek 16y ago
You wonder when the first time an executive at Cisco said this. 10-15 years later, the company seems almost incapable of building anything, except for new Cisco-looking bezels for the products they've acquired. If you're an engineer at Cisco and you get an MRD --- not even for a new product, but simply for version 3.0 of something already shipping --- the rational move to make is to go start a company to build it. After all, even if you kick ass and kill yourself to built it internally, they'll still buy someone else; after all, "someone else" comes with customers attached already. Then again, who's to say that's a bad thing? Cisco steamrolls over its competition; entrepreneurial devs get multiple bites at a $5-$25MM apple; new products get shipped. I'm not being sarcastic: the strategy works. Takes a bit of the fun out of it for Googlers, though.
- m0nastic 16y ago
  10 years ago I was out drinking at a bar in Santa Cruz with a marketing rep for Cisco who asked us what our thoughts were about the company as regards to other technology companies. I told her that I didn't really think of Cisco as a technology company, but as an acquisition company; which she was really surprised to hear. Even then it was pretty apparent that they weren't doing very much in-house (and it's gotten even worse since then). Which is sort of a shame, as back in my network engineer days I dreamed about working there on IOS.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    I know people who washed into Cisco in acquisitions who multiple times left to start companies marketing remarkably specific and incremental improvements to existing Cisco products; almost as bad as, "here's the company I started to provide this specific report for the Cisco 4371GX†". I'm not kidding about the MRD thing; if you're an entrepreneur and a developer, I think they might be tradeable information. I've never worked at Cisco and I have no negative opinions of them or their products. Like I said, the strategy seems to work. I just wonder whether Google's culture is ready for the terminus of this slippery slope. Remember what they used to say about Microsoft in the late '90s? How it wasn't a good idea to make fun of their 1.0 products, because the one thing they were going to be good at was refining them and refining them and refining them until they took over the market? Who still does that anymore? † Made up
    - gms 16y ago
      "Who still does that anymore?" Apple?
      - tptacek 16y ago
        Yep. Apple is one.
    - m0nastic 16y ago
      I've always found it odd how many resources they still devote to R&D considering their acquisition strategy. I agree, I actually still like the company (although I was never actually a fan of the Pix's, the ASA's are a lot better). When I was at BBN we worked really closely with Cisco, and some of my other colleagues made their way over there. I don't know who is left to do that sort of "iterative product development". I feel like as the scale of technology has increased, it's really become easier to just let someone else take the risk in launching something, and then if they're successful, buy them up.
    - RyanMcGreal 16y ago
      >I know people who washed into Cisco in acquisitions who multiple times left to start companies marketing remarkably specific and incremental improvements to existing Cisco products When you put it that way, it actually sounds like a wonderful (for Cisco) way to outsource the risk of innovation by offering to pay a premium for good ideas that are well executed.
      - tptacek 16y ago
        It probably is. But it's probably not compatible with the engineering culture at Google.
    - zoomzoom 16y ago
      who still does that anymore? how about google! look at sometime like GAE - constant stream on steady improvements, not great yet but still you must admit it is getting better. Same for gmail (still ahead of the competition), search, and pretty much everything else that they do.
martythemaniak 16y ago
It's kinda hard to talk about all acquisitions equally. Take Android for example: founded in 2003, acquired in by Google in 2005 and launched in 2008 (launched widely in 2009). I would call it both a successful acquisition and a successful Google product. Groupon, OTOH, seemed like a wholly different thing - they already had a big name, lots of customers and independent identity. Seems like google wanted to buy them to move into a whole new area, rather than building them slowly into the company like Maps, Android, Docs etc
brown9-2 16y ago
It seems too easy to interpret these statements to mean that Google would rather buy a company than build a new product. From reading the actual quotes, seems like the executive was speaking very specifically about entering into a whole new line of business like acquiring Groupon would have represented.

40 points by bakbak 16y ago

You wonder when the first time an executive at Cisco said this. 10-15 years later, the company seems almost incapable of building anything, except for new Cisco-looking bezels for the products they've acquired. If you're an engineer at Cisco and you get an MRD --- not even for a new product, but simply for version 3.0 of something already shipping --- the rational move to make is to go start a company to build it. After all, even if you kick ass and kill yourself to built it internally, they'll still buy someone else; after all, "someone else" comes with customers attached already. Then again, who's to say that's a bad thing? Cisco steamrolls over its competition; entrepreneurial devs get multiple bites at a $5-$25MM apple; new products get shipped. I'm not being sarcastic: the strategy works. Takes a bit of the fun out of it for Googlers, though.

m0nastic 16y ago
10 years ago I was out drinking at a bar in Santa Cruz with a marketing rep for Cisco who asked us what our thoughts were about the company as regards to other technology companies. I told her that I didn't really think of Cisco as a technology company, but as an acquisition company; which she was really surprised to hear. Even then it was pretty apparent that they weren't doing very much in-house (and it's gotten even worse since then). Which is sort of a shame, as back in my network engineer days I dreamed about working there on IOS.
- tptacek 16y ago
  I know people who washed into Cisco in acquisitions who multiple times left to start companies marketing remarkably specific and incremental improvements to existing Cisco products; almost as bad as, "here's the company I started to provide this specific report for the Cisco 4371GX†". I'm not kidding about the MRD thing; if you're an entrepreneur and a developer, I think they might be tradeable information. I've never worked at Cisco and I have no negative opinions of them or their products. Like I said, the strategy seems to work. I just wonder whether Google's culture is ready for the terminus of this slippery slope. Remember what they used to say about Microsoft in the late '90s? How it wasn't a good idea to make fun of their 1.0 products, because the one thing they were going to be good at was refining them and refining them and refining them until they took over the market? Who still does that anymore? † Made up
  - gms 16y ago
    "Who still does that anymore?" Apple?
    - tptacek 16y ago
      Yep. Apple is one.
  - m0nastic 16y ago
    I've always found it odd how many resources they still devote to R&D considering their acquisition strategy. I agree, I actually still like the company (although I was never actually a fan of the Pix's, the ASA's are a lot better). When I was at BBN we worked really closely with Cisco, and some of my other colleagues made their way over there. I don't know who is left to do that sort of "iterative product development". I feel like as the scale of technology has increased, it's really become easier to just let someone else take the risk in launching something, and then if they're successful, buy them up.
  - RyanMcGreal 16y ago
    >I know people who washed into Cisco in acquisitions who multiple times left to start companies marketing remarkably specific and incremental improvements to existing Cisco products When you put it that way, it actually sounds like a wonderful (for Cisco) way to outsource the risk of innovation by offering to pay a premium for good ideas that are well executed.
    - tptacek 16y ago
      It probably is. But it's probably not compatible with the engineering culture at Google.
  - zoomzoom 16y ago
    who still does that anymore? how about google! look at sometime like GAE - constant stream on steady improvements, not great yet but still you must admit it is getting better. Same for gmail (still ahead of the competition), search, and pretty much everything else that they do.

martythemaniak 16y ago

It's kinda hard to talk about all acquisitions equally. Take Android for example: founded in 2003, acquired in by Google in 2005 and launched in 2008 (launched widely in 2009). I would call it both a successful acquisition and a successful Google product. Groupon, OTOH, seemed like a wholly different thing - they already had a big name, lots of customers and independent identity. Seems like google wanted to buy them to move into a whole new area, rather than building them slowly into the company like Maps, Android, Docs etc

brown9-2 16y ago

It seems too easy to interpret these statements to mean that Google would rather buy a company than build a new product. From reading the actual quotes, seems like the executive was speaking very specifically about entering into a whole new line of business like acquiring Groupon would have represented.