At stake for Google is the question of whether it can achieve an additional 'generation' of growth, not survival. It's easy to imagine that it should have been

At stake for Google is the question of whether it can achieve an additional 'generation' of growth, not survival. It's easy to imagine that it should have been able to get this growth, watching Facebook, and I think this is tantalizing, both to investors and people inside Google. If it can't, it will go the way of Microsoft. What is that way? That way is the way of IBM. What is that way? Billions of dollars in earnings, dominant market positions carved out, buy over build technology decisions. So, yes, it's nice (for some) to imagine Google doing it 'again', but they don't have to do it again, I wouldn't say. Just like Microsoft getting crushed by Google really just ended in Microsoft's growth slowing, and their earnings increasing, Google getting crushed by FB, or some new wunderkind is unlikely to evaporate all those billions of dollars in cash, assets and projects.