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I think you’re mis-reading the thread. Jeff Huber says YouTube are cranking features, but their backend probably won’t scale and they don’t have good monetizati

I think you’re mis-reading the thread. Jeff Huber says YouTube are cranking features, but their backend probably won’t scale and they don’t have good monetization. That ultimately ends up being what they do — after acquiring YouTube, they re-built it using Google’s distributed systems infrastructure and software. And the monetization model today is in fact (mostly) ads. What you then see in the thread is someone else saying: yeah we’re going to catch up, we just need a couple of more devs. And then the counterpoint that well, even if Google doesn’t end up doing it, at least it makes it harder for Yahoo. The original motivation isn’t just to make it harder for Yahoo. It’s that Huber wants to bring these people on board because they are really good at innovating, and Google can help make it really successful. But there was some pushback, and then other reasons were presented to continue with the conversation. At these companies (any company?), sometimes to get what you want you have to present a diverse set of reasons, even if only one of them is the principal reason why you want to do something. Note: I work for Google.

capableweb 5y ago
It seems fairly obvious that what the people are discussing in the linked email thread is anti competitive behavior. Here are some excerpts: > and were thinking about a acq with Yahoo > and it would be nice for y! not to have them > their content quality is worse than ours ... if we pick them up it would be defensive vs yahoo > I think we should talk to them, if nothing else to make it more expensive for Yahoo You don't make statements like that and then explain it with "It didn't seem like they would scale and we don't have enough devs". The decision on if the buy YouTube or not (or another video company), was clearly influenced by the "risk" of Yahoo buying the very same company.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  When does competition become anti-competitive? If I see a promising startup in my space with challenges ahead, it seems reasonable to consider many different angles, including whether I can help them succeed and whether a competitor could also help them succeed (or they could help a competitor). Given that Y! was considering buying YouTube, the probability that a similar set of emails was written on Yahoo’s end is approximately 1. IMO, that’s because they were also competing with Google. Is everyone in that market acting anti-competitively? What would that even mean (absent collusion)?
  - after_care 5y ago
    It means the purpose of Google’s acquisition was to limit the market offerings of Yahoo.
    - plandis 5y ago
      That doesn’t sound like _the_ purpose of the acquisition, it was one of the arguments in the conversation but not the sole reason. Given that YouTube has not been killed and Google has heavily invested in it and there were some legal minefields with Youtubes content early on that Google would then take on, I think it’s reasonable to conclude that they didn’t acquire it just to mess with Yahoo
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      That would be clearcut if they had acquired YT and then promptly buried it. Instead, they invested in it massively, and built it over several years into a profitable aspect of their business. That doesn't look "anti-competitive" to me (given the usual assumptions of 21st century US capitalism).
    - adventured 5y ago
      This thread is hilarious. Google only generates revenue to deny their competition that money! Their sole reason to exist is to be anti-competitive! Every time they breathe they're being anti-competitive.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    It's not like we have to choose: Google and Yahoo can both have been anti-competitive, so what does it matter if Yahoo did, or didn't, consider things from the same angle? They are literally talking about making a decision on the basis of eliminating a competitor from the market via a purchase they thought might have little/no other value. I think that is a reasonable working definition for examples if anti-competitive behavior.
    - judge2020 5y ago
      If anticompetitive behavior could simply be considered "purchasing companies of which you might compete with" we'd see a lot more antitrust lawsuits.
- code_duck 5y ago
  Anti-competitive behavior is the normal way businesses operate. It only becomes notable or illegal when they have a monopoly position, which I don’t believe describes Google in 2005.
- cavisne 5y ago
  It reads more like persuading people to go ahead with the acquisition without saying the reality (the dev team was way behind).
- nl 5y ago
  2005 Google was very far from a monopoly.
ineedasername 5y ago
[Edit: I see the feature quote now] I don't see it. They're saying it's nothing special-- they're not aware of a significant talent pool and there are "no big video brains". From there, the first two reasons stated for actual consideration in acquiring YouTube are as a defense or because even talking to them will make it more expensive for someone else to acquire them.
- cplex 5y ago
  The second sentence. Sounds like you maybe missed the first screenshot?
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    I did miss it, thanks. I avoid Twitter, so browsing it on a phone makes it easy (for me) to miss how they stacked the images. But that doesn't change much about this story: what does it matter that they note features-- already on Google's roadmap-- when they then, as their stated reason for actually buying YouTube, is as a defensive move? Basically: "YouTube has some nice features but we're already building them and just want the company so Yahoo can't have them." That doesn't make this picture look any better for Google.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      > Basically: "YouTube has some nice features but we're already building them and just want the company so Yahoo can't have them." That's not what it says. If you want to go that basic: "Youtube is doing better at innovating here than us, but we have some stuff they don't, and if we acquired them we'd get the best of both worlds and deny it to Yahoo"
    - nl 5y ago
      > That doesn't make this picture look any better for Google. Even if you make the case this only anti-competitive there is nothing wrong with that behaviour by 2005 Google. It's not illegal or even significant in anyway.
stefan_ 5y ago
Wow, thank god we had the geniuses at Google to give them their unique monetization model: ads! I don't get it, that first paragraph describes just about every startup ever. And I'm sure had Yahoo acquired it, it would have been "re-built using Yahoo's distributed systems infrastructure and software". Don't you know it, they would have updated the letterhead too!
- da_chicken 5y ago
  > Wow, thank god we had the geniuses at Google to give them their unique monetization model: ads! I think you're forgetting the state of the web in 2005. The tech to do on the fly pre-roll and mid-roll ads in an existing video didn't exist in 2005, there was no significant market for video advertising on the web in 2005, and web browsers could not play video at all. It was all plugin based. There was no streaming standard. There was no way to circumvent banner ad blocking, too. Sure, that new thing Web 2.0 might help, and XHTML 2 sounds promising, but it's not there yet. To top it off, the main way most users -- even Americans -- connected to the internet in 2005 was still dial-up! So you're a niche market, too. If your model is "just use ads" then the 2005 response is "okay, but how do you sell dynamic ad views in videos with maybe a couple thousand views? And how do they work?"
- adventured 5y ago
  YouTube was going to go bankrupt without a large reservoir of funds. YouTube would have suffered a far worse fate in the hands of the extra special incompetent Yahoo organization. While I might like to see YouTube spun out of Google, Google is the primary reason it survived. Along with bleeding to death financially as one likely outcome, YouTube was going to get sued into oblivion. Google shielded them in terms of liability because Google was fearsome enough to intimidate the overly lawsuit-happy savages in Hollywood and the music industry. That delayed the reckoning that was coming for YouTube in regards to the content on their platform that was under copyright by major media publishers (music in particular). There were dozens of prominent articles written about that specific context back in those years.
  - sjg007 5y ago
sjg007 5y ago
I've worked at companies where people really dislike things not invented here. I don't get it, if you can acquire technology you should.

capableweb 5y ago

It seems fairly obvious that what the people are discussing in the linked email thread is anti competitive behavior. Here are some excerpts: > and were thinking about a acq with Yahoo > and it would be nice for y! not to have them > their content quality is worse than ours ... if we pick them up it would be defensive vs yahoo > I think we should talk to them, if nothing else to make it more expensive for Yahoo You don't make statements like that and then explain it with "It didn't seem like they would scale and we don't have enough devs". The decision on if the buy YouTube or not (or another video company), was clearly influenced by the "risk" of Yahoo buying the very same company.

sokoloff 5y ago
When does competition become anti-competitive? If I see a promising startup in my space with challenges ahead, it seems reasonable to consider many different angles, including whether I can help them succeed and whether a competitor could also help them succeed (or they could help a competitor). Given that Y! was considering buying YouTube, the probability that a similar set of emails was written on Yahoo’s end is approximately 1. IMO, that’s because they were also competing with Google. Is everyone in that market acting anti-competitively? What would that even mean (absent collusion)?
- after_care 5y ago
  It means the purpose of Google’s acquisition was to limit the market offerings of Yahoo.
  - plandis 5y ago
    That doesn’t sound like _the_ purpose of the acquisition, it was one of the arguments in the conversation but not the sole reason. Given that YouTube has not been killed and Google has heavily invested in it and there were some legal minefields with Youtubes content early on that Google would then take on, I think it’s reasonable to conclude that they didn’t acquire it just to mess with Yahoo
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    That would be clearcut if they had acquired YT and then promptly buried it. Instead, they invested in it massively, and built it over several years into a profitable aspect of their business. That doesn't look "anti-competitive" to me (given the usual assumptions of 21st century US capitalism).
  - adventured 5y ago
    This thread is hilarious. Google only generates revenue to deny their competition that money! Their sole reason to exist is to be anti-competitive! Every time they breathe they're being anti-competitive.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  It's not like we have to choose: Google and Yahoo can both have been anti-competitive, so what does it matter if Yahoo did, or didn't, consider things from the same angle? They are literally talking about making a decision on the basis of eliminating a competitor from the market via a purchase they thought might have little/no other value. I think that is a reasonable working definition for examples if anti-competitive behavior.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    If anticompetitive behavior could simply be considered "purchasing companies of which you might compete with" we'd see a lot more antitrust lawsuits.
code_duck 5y ago
Anti-competitive behavior is the normal way businesses operate. It only becomes notable or illegal when they have a monopoly position, which I don’t believe describes Google in 2005.
cavisne 5y ago
It reads more like persuading people to go ahead with the acquisition without saying the reality (the dev team was way behind).
nl 5y ago
2005 Google was very far from a monopoly.

ineedasername 5y ago

[Edit: I see the feature quote now] I don't see it. They're saying it's nothing special-- they're not aware of a significant talent pool and there are "no big video brains". From there, the first two reasons stated for actual consideration in acquiring YouTube are as a defense or because even talking to them will make it more expensive for someone else to acquire them.

cplex 5y ago
The second sentence. Sounds like you maybe missed the first screenshot?
- ineedasername 5y ago
  I did miss it, thanks. I avoid Twitter, so browsing it on a phone makes it easy (for me) to miss how they stacked the images. But that doesn't change much about this story: what does it matter that they note features-- already on Google's roadmap-- when they then, as their stated reason for actually buying YouTube, is as a defensive move? Basically: "YouTube has some nice features but we're already building them and just want the company so Yahoo can't have them." That doesn't make this picture look any better for Google.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    > Basically: "YouTube has some nice features but we're already building them and just want the company so Yahoo can't have them." That's not what it says. If you want to go that basic: "Youtube is doing better at innovating here than us, but we have some stuff they don't, and if we acquired them we'd get the best of both worlds and deny it to Yahoo"
  - nl 5y ago
    > That doesn't make this picture look any better for Google. Even if you make the case this only anti-competitive there is nothing wrong with that behaviour by 2005 Google. It's not illegal or even significant in anyway.

stefan_ 5y ago

Wow, thank god we had the geniuses at Google to give them their unique monetization model: ads! I don't get it, that first paragraph describes just about every startup ever. And I'm sure had Yahoo acquired it, it would have been "re-built using Yahoo's distributed systems infrastructure and software". Don't you know it, they would have updated the letterhead too!

da_chicken 5y ago
> Wow, thank god we had the geniuses at Google to give them their unique monetization model: ads! I think you're forgetting the state of the web in 2005. The tech to do on the fly pre-roll and mid-roll ads in an existing video didn't exist in 2005, there was no significant market for video advertising on the web in 2005, and web browsers could not play video at all. It was all plugin based. There was no streaming standard. There was no way to circumvent banner ad blocking, too. Sure, that new thing Web 2.0 might help, and XHTML 2 sounds promising, but it's not there yet. To top it off, the main way most users -- even Americans -- connected to the internet in 2005 was still dial-up! So you're a niche market, too. If your model is "just use ads" then the 2005 response is "okay, but how do you sell dynamic ad views in videos with maybe a couple thousand views? And how do they work?"
adventured 5y ago
YouTube was going to go bankrupt without a large reservoir of funds. YouTube would have suffered a far worse fate in the hands of the extra special incompetent Yahoo organization. While I might like to see YouTube spun out of Google, Google is the primary reason it survived. Along with bleeding to death financially as one likely outcome, YouTube was going to get sued into oblivion. Google shielded them in terms of liability because Google was fearsome enough to intimidate the overly lawsuit-happy savages in Hollywood and the music industry. That delayed the reckoning that was coming for YouTube in regards to the content on their platform that was under copyright by major media publishers (music in particular). There were dozens of prominent articles written about that specific context back in those years.
- sjg007 5y ago

sjg007 5y ago

I've worked at companies where people really dislike things not invented here. I don't get it, if you can acquire technology you should.