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They need to look like they are working on something decent whilst the ad casino keeps churning money for them. Otherwise investors will inevitably realize tha

They need to look like they are working on something decent whilst the ad casino keeps churning money for them. Otherwise investors will inevitably realize that Google hasn't really done much. I'm certain that many investors are riding on the Moon Shot projects they keep marching out.

enkid 6y ago
They could also just pay a bigger dividend or buy back stock. Investors would like that more than a continuous stream of projects that will never be monetized.
autoditype 6y ago
> I'm certain that many investors are riding on the Moon Shot projects they keep marching out. When they realize that Google is shutting down all the Loon Shot projects, I wonder if they'll keep investing or start pulling out their money.
vxNsr 6y ago
Are you saying that google is overvalued? Or just that it’s not doing anything expect literally printing money which might make its investors lose interest? Afaik, none of the moonshots appeared to be anywhere nearly as lucrative is search ads.
- melomal 6y ago
  Exactly, it almost feels like Google are just funding these projects to essentially make it look like there's some tech progress going on. Even the self-driving side of their ambitions which seemed to being doing wonders for making Google look like a pioneer for a while.
  - vxNsr 6y ago
    So just to be explicit about it: investors don’t care about real tech innovation. They like it if it translates to producing lots of money for the company but the only thing they really care about is making money, Google has shown that it’s a very good money printer and thus investors have rewarded it with an insanely high valuation. For this reason I believe Amazon will be rolled out into two different companies now that Bezos has stepped away from day2day. One will be the money printer: AWS and the other will be the slightly less profitable store business. The MBAs will argue that this will increase shareholder value which investors see as a win.
bearjaws 6y ago
Android GCP Chrome eco system, e.g. chromecast + chromebook + literally the most popular browser Google home / nest > Hasn't really done much...
- melomal 6y ago
  All of which has been exploited to hell to gain as much data about individuals as possible. IMO data sourcing isn't really high tech. Finding ways to convince people to use products in order to gain more data is quite interesting but not really major tech advancements.

enkid 6y ago

They could also just pay a bigger dividend or buy back stock. Investors would like that more than a continuous stream of projects that will never be monetized.

autoditype 6y ago

> I'm certain that many investors are riding on the Moon Shot projects they keep marching out. When they realize that Google is shutting down all the Loon Shot projects, I wonder if they'll keep investing or start pulling out their money.

vxNsr 6y ago

Are you saying that google is overvalued? Or just that it’s not doing anything expect literally printing money which might make its investors lose interest? Afaik, none of the moonshots appeared to be anywhere nearly as lucrative is search ads.

melomal 6y ago
Exactly, it almost feels like Google are just funding these projects to essentially make it look like there's some tech progress going on. Even the self-driving side of their ambitions which seemed to being doing wonders for making Google look like a pioneer for a while.
- vxNsr 6y ago
  So just to be explicit about it: investors don’t care about real tech innovation. They like it if it translates to producing lots of money for the company but the only thing they really care about is making money, Google has shown that it’s a very good money printer and thus investors have rewarded it with an insanely high valuation. For this reason I believe Amazon will be rolled out into two different companies now that Bezos has stepped away from day2day. One will be the money printer: AWS and the other will be the slightly less profitable store business. The MBAs will argue that this will increase shareholder value which investors see as a win.

bearjaws 6y ago

Android GCP Chrome eco system, e.g. chromecast + chromebook + literally the most popular browser Google home / nest > Hasn't really done much...

melomal 6y ago
All of which has been exploited to hell to gain as much data about individuals as possible. IMO data sourcing isn't really high tech. Finding ways to convince people to use products in order to gain more data is quite interesting but not really major tech advancements.