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Wow, this is a real indictment of goog’s plan to take the loot from ads and spend to diversify. They basically invented the cloud model, and if they don’t have

Wow, this is a real indictment of goog’s plan to take the loot from ads and spend to diversify. They basically invented the cloud model, and if they don’t have the culture and the ability to expand to this most naturally of expansion areas.. they are doomed. There is something seriously broken at google. This puts Larry quitting in more context. He’s lost confidence in google doing this, then there is nothing left for the org to do. Over—compensated, over-entitled, over-talented engineers that, when put together can’t actually accomplish anything. Maybe gutting the product org all those years ago was a mistake.

jpeg_hero 7y ago
Also, I feel like they are in an almost impossible competitive position. Their main competitive tool against aws is further differentiation by ‘moving up the stack” with more and more “do the tough stuff for you” platform services that fewer and fewer people use. It’s getting so baroque with no developer “pull”, people aren’t begging for these services to solve a real problem, more like goog saying “here’s another piece that could be helpful” Meanwhile, aws’s long history of walking people up the ramp of IAAS makes it more of a fit when they do start adding PAAS service and they fill a real need and get great adoption(for some/a lot of them)
Will_Do 7y ago
I agree with the general sentiment. It is staggering that they have spent at least 10s of billions if not > 100b trying to diversify away from ads and still do not have meaningful alternative revenue stream. It is one of the biggest mysteries to me. How is it possible to throw so much money and so many smart people at so many different problems and have no results? Microsoft and Amazon don't seem to have this problem but Facebook seems to suffer as well. That being said, their advertising business is insanely successful. I suspect they could at least double their stock price (and thus the wealth of their investors) if they dumped their speculative bets and focus on ads. It is extremely profitable and revenue keeps growing > 20% from a large base.
- jpeg_hero 7y ago
  Yeah, ads best medium since golden age of tv and it’s not like it’s all strikeouts. They’ve had insanely successful addons: - maps - gmail / google domains / docs - chrome / chrome box / chrome books - Android - YouTube It just seem like the “dream is dead”. Great business though.
  - jiqiren 7y ago
    All of these (minus google domains) are to bolster their ad business.

jpeg_hero 7y ago

Also, I feel like they are in an almost impossible competitive position. Their main competitive tool against aws is further differentiation by ‘moving up the stack” with more and more “do the tough stuff for you” platform services that fewer and fewer people use. It’s getting so baroque with no developer “pull”, people aren’t begging for these services to solve a real problem, more like goog saying “here’s another piece that could be helpful” Meanwhile, aws’s long history of walking people up the ramp of IAAS makes it more of a fit when they do start adding PAAS service and they fill a real need and get great adoption(for some/a lot of them)

Will_Do 7y ago

I agree with the general sentiment. It is staggering that they have spent at least 10s of billions if not > 100b trying to diversify away from ads and still do not have meaningful alternative revenue stream. It is one of the biggest mysteries to me. How is it possible to throw so much money and so many smart people at so many different problems and have no results? Microsoft and Amazon don't seem to have this problem but Facebook seems to suffer as well. That being said, their advertising business is insanely successful. I suspect they could at least double their stock price (and thus the wealth of their investors) if they dumped their speculative bets and focus on ads. It is extremely profitable and revenue keeps growing > 20% from a large base.

jpeg_hero 7y ago
Yeah, ads best medium since golden age of tv and it’s not like it’s all strikeouts. They’ve had insanely successful addons: - maps - gmail / google domains / docs - chrome / chrome box / chrome books - Android - YouTube It just seem like the “dream is dead”. Great business though.
- jiqiren 7y ago
  All of these (minus google domains) are to bolster their ad business.