4 ms·

Gotta give it to them, Amazon is the only big tech company with a vision - the rest are just sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars in cash and no good idea

Gotta give it to them, Amazon is the only big tech company with a vision - the rest are just sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars in cash and no good ideas against which to deploy all those funds.

skybrian 7y ago
Google invested $900 million in SpaceX back in 2015 [1]. Not sure if that counts as "vision", but it seems like it was a smart way to get into this market early. [1] https://spacenews.com/google-spacex-investment-is-900-million/ https://spacenews.com/google-spacex-investment-is-900-millio...
CamelCaseName 7y ago
Google attempted something similar with loon[0] and FB with internet.org[1] (IIRC, FB also had a few other initiatives) [0] https://loon.com/ https://loon.com/ [1] https://www.wired.com/story/what-happened-to-facebooks-grand-plan-to-wire-the-world/ https://www.wired.com/story/what-happened-to-facebooks-grand... And with regards to Amazon being the only big tech company with a vision -- I hear Apple just redesigned the monitor stand. Visionary.
- ehsankia 7y ago
  It's detailed more in your second link, but Facebook was planning to launch their first batch back in 2016, which ended up blowing up due to the failed SpaceX launch. So if it wasn't for that mishap, they may have had something operational by now.
ehsankia 7y ago
As pointed out by others, Google has had visionary projects for over a decade. Just take a look at their X projects [0]. Here's a few: - Verily is looking into improving medical tech - Malta is looking at more efficient energy storage - Makani is looking at innovative wind energy gathering - Loon is looking at connectivity for rural/remote communities - Foghorn is looking at creating clean energy from sea water And of course, let's not forget about Waymo which started 10 years ago, way ahead of its time. Google also invests heavily in many industries. They fund multiple fusion energy projects [1][2][3], they had a million dollar prize to encourage people to get to the moon [4], and as pointed out above they are big investors in SpaceX too. Meanwhile, other than Bezos' Blue Origin, I think this is basically a first for Amazon, and honestly even this feels much more of a business move than a "visionary project", considering there's literally 3-4 other companies trying to do the exact same thing (SpaceX, OneWeb, Facebook, Telesat). [0] https://x.company/projects/ https://x.company/projects/ [1] https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/news/a27484/google-fusion-energy-company-improve-plasma-reactor-ai/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/news/a27... [2] https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/29/18201220/nuclear-fusion-energy-artificial-intelligence-machine-learning-tae-google https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/29/18201220/nuclear-fusion-e... [3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2019/05/21/the-new-nuclear-how-a-600-million-fusion-energy-unicorn-plans-to-beat-solar/#46f6fe23629e https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2019/05/21/th... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Lunar_X_Prize https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Lunar_X_Prize
bredren 7y ago
Amazon also had press this week about drone delivery. Quite a presumption that announcing specific developments today is a singular sign of a big tech company’s vision. In a carefully oriented company, I think drips of vision are hidden in every executive interview and minor product release. You only get major, obvious vision-level clarity once in a very long while.

skybrian 7y ago

Google invested $900 million in SpaceX back in 2015 [1]. Not sure if that counts as "vision", but it seems like it was a smart way to get into this market early. [1] https://spacenews.com/google-spacex-investment-is-900-million/ https://spacenews.com/google-spacex-investment-is-900-millio...

CamelCaseName 7y ago

Google attempted something similar with loon[0] and FB with internet.org[1] (IIRC, FB also had a few other initiatives) [0] https://loon.com/ https://loon.com/ [1] https://www.wired.com/story/what-happened-to-facebooks-grand-plan-to-wire-the-world/ https://www.wired.com/story/what-happened-to-facebooks-grand... And with regards to Amazon being the only big tech company with a vision -- I hear Apple just redesigned the monitor stand. Visionary.

ehsankia 7y ago
It's detailed more in your second link, but Facebook was planning to launch their first batch back in 2016, which ended up blowing up due to the failed SpaceX launch. So if it wasn't for that mishap, they may have had something operational by now.

ehsankia 7y ago

As pointed out by others, Google has had visionary projects for over a decade. Just take a look at their X projects [0]. Here's a few: - Verily is looking into improving medical tech - Malta is looking at more efficient energy storage - Makani is looking at innovative wind energy gathering - Loon is looking at connectivity for rural/remote communities - Foghorn is looking at creating clean energy from sea water And of course, let's not forget about Waymo which started 10 years ago, way ahead of its time. Google also invests heavily in many industries. They fund multiple fusion energy projects [1][2][3], they had a million dollar prize to encourage people to get to the moon [4], and as pointed out above they are big investors in SpaceX too. Meanwhile, other than Bezos' Blue Origin, I think this is basically a first for Amazon, and honestly even this feels much more of a business move than a "visionary project", considering there's literally 3-4 other companies trying to do the exact same thing (SpaceX, OneWeb, Facebook, Telesat). [0] https://x.company/projects/ https://x.company/projects/ [1] https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/news/a27484/google-fusion-energy-company-improve-plasma-reactor-ai/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/news/a27... [2] https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/29/18201220/nuclear-fusion-energy-artificial-intelligence-machine-learning-tae-google https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/29/18201220/nuclear-fusion-e... [3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2019/05/21/the-new-nuclear-how-a-600-million-fusion-energy-unicorn-plans-to-beat-solar/#46f6fe23629e https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2019/05/21/th... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Lunar_X_Prize https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Lunar_X_Prize

bredren 7y ago

Amazon also had press this week about drone delivery. Quite a presumption that announcing specific developments today is a singular sign of a big tech company’s vision. In a carefully oriented company, I think drips of vision are hidden in every executive interview and minor product release. You only get major, obvious vision-level clarity once in a very long while.