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>As Google has moved to expand its data collection, some potential partners have been put off by what they viewed as the company’s aggressive maneuvers to acqui
by Despegar 7y ago
>As Google has moved to expand its data collection, some potential partners have been put off by what they viewed as the company’s aggressive maneuvers to acquire data without providing enough information on how it would be used.
>Google pushed one medical-data manager not to share data with other companies, according to a person familiar with the pitch.
>As part of its huge offer for Cerner, whose software is embedded in doctors’ offices in 30 countries, Google used its size to its advantage. Google Cloud executives offered that other arms of the conglomerate would buy unspecified other services from Cerner, people familiar with the matter say.
>Cerner ultimately accepted a less generous offer from Amazon, in part because the company decided Amazon was more trustworthy on security, according to one of these people.
>Existing players in the health-care data market also fear that the tech giant will gain too much power in their industry. Some hospital and technology executives say they declined deals with Google lest it become a future competitor.
>“We could never pin down Google on what their true business model was,” says a Cerner executive involved in the discussions.
It seems like Google is using GCP as a venus fly trap and Cerner was right to avoid them. The lure is cheap bog standard cloud services, but only if you have a more all-encompassing partnership where your data helps them develop other Google products.
>Reiterating what Google has told lawmakers and industry executives in private meetings over the past two months, Dr. Feinberg says he operates on a personal directive from Mr. Schmidt: “Don’t worry about making money.”
This quote is extremely telling in my opinion, and it's just classic Google. The most generous interpretation of this is that Google has altruistic motivations to make advances in health and they shouldn't worry about how to monetize whatever they build. That of course is completely absurd and extremely dangerous because that is exactly how Google slides into evil (evil is banal). The less generous interpretation is that Dr. Feinberg is only there to provide a sheen of health industry credibility (key opinion leader) and he has no actual ownership of Google's health business at all.
And judging by this paragraph, I'm leaning to the latter:
>Outcry over the Ascension deal, including a federal inquiry and objections from patients, shocked executives inside Google, and opened fissures in its top ranks over how to proceed, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. The head of Google Health, Dr. Feinberg, pushed to tell the public more about his division’s operations, but met resistance from longtime staffers who cite the company’s tradition of keeping potential new products under wraps.
- carapace 7y agoIn re: “Don’t worry about making money.”: They're sitting in a firehose of cashflow. They waste more in a day than most people earn in a lifetime. I was working as a contractor there and the Occam's Razor hypothesis I formed to account for the massive waste I saw was that they have so much money that they can afford to sequester talent. (Meaning, they can hire a bunch of people just to keep them from working for competitors.) I know that's not true, but it's less upsetting than admitting they're just that wasteful.
- Infinitesimus 7y ago> Meaning, they can hire a bunch of people just to keep them from working for competitors. I think that's pretty true and partly explains why they respond so well to competing offers from other tech companies when you're negotiating salary
- titzer 7y ago> The most generous interpretation of this is that Google has altruistic motivations to make advances in health and they shouldn't worry about how to monetize whatever they build. You either make money from your users or off your users.
- deadmutex 7y ago> You either make money from your users or off your users. I encourage you to have a broader perspective, since this statement isn't true. E.g. let's examine what Dr Feinberg (who current leads Google Health), oversaw at his last job (see link below). tl;dr - They gave free food to some people with diabetes, which was better and cheaper than giving them drugs. This was not just free PR, etc. https://www.hcinnovationgroup.com/population-health-management/blog/13029810/why-geisingers-fresh-food-farmacy-initiative-could-turn-out-to-be-a-nationally-replicable-model https://www.hcinnovationgroup.com/population-health-manageme...