3 ms·

Let me ask you a question: why does it matter if a new successful product comes from an acquisition or is homegrown? Everything on your list other than Gmail an

by jmyeet 4y ago

Let me ask you a question: why does it matter if a new successful product comes from an acquisition or is homegrown? Everything on your list other than Gmail and Chrome (which relied on Webkit FWIW) were acquisitions. Some acquisitions just mean billion of dollars spent for nothing and these get a lot of attention. Remember when AOL bought BeBo for $850m? But every acquisition is a gamble. Most won't pay off but some will, spectacularly. Like in 2022 can you really believe that Google paid less than $2 billion for Youtube? Is that not the biggest bargain of the century? Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion. Were it a separate company, at least until the last couple of years, it probably would be worth 100x that. Most ideas don't turn into billion (or trillion) dollar companies. Expecting a company to do that multiple times is like expecting to win the lottery twice. Taking a $1 billion company and turning it into a $100+ billion business is itself a massive success. I'm not sure why the homegrown product is assumed to be somehow more virtuous.

soperj 4y ago
> which relied on Webkit Which relied on KHTML.
- danans 4y ago
  > Which relied on KHTML. Which was built on the QT toolkit created by Troll Tech [1]. QT was designed originally inspired by folks working on a cross-platform application for ultrasound imaging [2]. Turtles all the way down. 1. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007/06/ars-at-wwdc-interview-with-lars-knoll-creator-of-khtml/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007/06/ars-at-wwdc-intervie... 2. https://wiki.qt.io/Qt_History https://wiki.qt.io/Qt_History
megaman821 4y ago
I would love to see Tech Journalist Sentiment vs Tech Company M&A to see who got it right more often. I distinctly remember tech journalists lambasting Facebook for spending so much money on Instagram. That said Google should bring back Google Labs. They are tarnishing their main brand by cancelling so many projects. Tell people anything that graduates to the main Google brand gets at least a 10-year support cycle.
jimt1234 4y ago
> ...is like expecting to win the lottery twice. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/10/28/delaware-woman-wins-lottery-twice-one-week/10624208002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/10/28/delawa... LOL

by jmyeet 4y ago

soperj 4y ago

> which relied on Webkit Which relied on KHTML.

danans 4y ago
> Which relied on KHTML. Which was built on the QT toolkit created by Troll Tech [1]. QT was designed originally inspired by folks working on a cross-platform application for ultrasound imaging [2]. Turtles all the way down. 1. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007/06/ars-at-wwdc-interview-with-lars-knoll-creator-of-khtml/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007/06/ars-at-wwdc-intervie... 2. https://wiki.qt.io/Qt_History https://wiki.qt.io/Qt_History

megaman821 4y ago

I would love to see Tech Journalist Sentiment vs Tech Company M&A to see who got it right more often. I distinctly remember tech journalists lambasting Facebook for spending so much money on Instagram. That said Google should bring back Google Labs. They are tarnishing their main brand by cancelling so many projects. Tell people anything that graduates to the main Google brand gets at least a 10-year support cycle.

jimt1234 4y ago

> ...is like expecting to win the lottery twice. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/10/28/delaware-woman-wins-lottery-twice-one-week/10624208002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/10/28/delawa... LOL