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I wonder if that is good news. You can look at it either as they slowed how much money they pour into the moonshots incinerator, or they stopped investing in po

I wonder if that is good news. You can look at it either as they slowed how much money they pour into the moonshots incinerator, or they stopped investing in potential unicorn lines of business.

Kluggy 3y ago
I think they have proved that it's a incinerator at this point.
- jeffbee 3y ago
  Well, a lot of the money goes into Waymo which is just ramping into revenue service. With the filing they submitted last week, they want to serve all of Silicon Valley and all of Los Angeles County, which is more than an order of magnitude expansion in their market. Waymo might be a real investment and not just an emergency profit reducer.
- disillusioned 3y ago
  Waymo _might_ be the sole survivor here... they are ABSOLUTELY trying their damndest with it. It's remarkable to not go a single day without seeing a driverless Waymo doing its thing. (I live in Central Phoenix, they're _everywhere_.) The core concept is being proven pretty well, in markets with good weather and good roads at least... whether they can achieve some sort of critical mass that allows them to recoup any of the investment, even on a single capitalized vehicle... who knows. I've heard each Jag costs ~$250k fully loaded... that's a lot of ~$14-on-average trips before breakeven, and obviously the trips aren't free. That all being said, riding in one feels like the actual future, and if they close in on this first-mover advantage and keep on keeping on, and strengthen their Uber integration, and open in more and more markets... there's a real chance they establish themselves and make this thing actually capture a significant portion of the trip economy. That being said, it's not generalized, so opening markets is expensive because they're all individually trained for each mile of road in the market, I expect they'll be functionally useless in bad winters (but that's not a dealbreaker, per se), and those operating expenses remain high. Though I do expect we'll begin to see those lower, now that they're so deep into the proof of the concept. (They're finally starting highway driving here in PHX, which is really the last hill to climb.)
  - Workaccount2 3y ago
    I always imagined Google licensing the tech as opposed to spinning up a fully fledged national taxi service.
    - clhodapp 3y ago
      Interesting. I could imagine Uber mortgaging their whole market cap to acquire Waymo as a lifeline to staying relevant in the long term. They would essentially be "buying" what has always been their long-term product vision.
    - rogerbinns 3y ago
      The most valuable owner in this space is whoever you communicate with to tell them where you want to go. They get to offer you a price, they get to offer you alternative destinations, and they get to offer you "deals". For example that means that a different supermarket can make an offer you come to them instead, or you can be offered a different price should a different route be taken, a ride share happen, a journey delayed or brought forward, and numerous other possibilities. It isn't too dissimilar to typing what you are interested in to a search engine. That will be extremely lucrative. But for it to work, that entity will have to have ultimate control over where the vehicle goes. Everybody is going to want to have that ultimate control, and not cede it to someone else. That would make licensing not really work out since Google would retain control.
      - resolutebat 3y ago
        Color me skeptical, but I've never gotten in a car without having decided my destination first. I don't go to "any supermarket", I go to Supermarket X because they have the goods I need at a price I accept or the best promos that week or whatever. If letting your rideshare company decide your destination was really a thing, why wouldn't Uber be doing it already be doing it with human drivers?
        d0gsg0w00f 3y ago
        > I've never gotten in a car without having decided my destination first. Not yet... > If letting your rideshare company decide your destination was really a thing, why wouldn't Uber be doing it already be doing it with human drivers? Because Uber isn't an advertising company. They're still chasing fares like scrubs
- TulliusCicero 3y ago
  Waymo seems like it'll go the distance. Clear market leader in the US, and it doesn't seem particularly close, even if it's taken them (and everyone else) longer than expected to start scaling. Cruise attempted to just start launching before the tech was really finished and it backfired horribly. Tesla is still doing Elon things, looks like the tech is mostly spinning its wheels as they work on yet another hardware revision that'll definitely handle self-driving this time.
javiramos 3y ago
What are some promising Google moonshots apart from Waymo?
- xnx 3y ago
  Drone delivery: https://wing.com/ https://wing.com/
  - dekhn 3y ago
    there is so far only a tiny market for drone delivery and it seems like it would be unlikely to grow into a multibillion dollar business. Their competitors (who have more experience with shipping physical things) are also evaluating this with mixed success.
foota 3y ago
Most of the difference is explained by an increase in revenue while holding expenses constant: "Other Bets, which includes the Waymo self-driving car business and the Verily life sciences unit, reported revenue of $657 million, up from $226 million the year prior. Its loss narrowed to $863 million from $1.24 billion." So revenue up 400 million, and losses dropped by 400 million.
rdsubhas 3y ago
I guess the point being made by that comment is, it could be an accounting / book-shifting trick.
- jsnell 3y ago
  That theory doesn't make any sense. Both measures are moving in the same direction (i.e. both units are becoming more profitable). If it was some kind of revenue shifting trick, the numbers would be moving in opposite directions.

I wonder if that is good news. You can look at it either as they slowed how much money they pour into the moonshots incinerator, or they stopped investing in potential unicorn lines of business.

Kluggy 3y ago

I think they have proved that it's a incinerator at this point.

jeffbee 3y ago
Well, a lot of the money goes into Waymo which is just ramping into revenue service. With the filing they submitted last week, they want to serve all of Silicon Valley and all of Los Angeles County, which is more than an order of magnitude expansion in their market. Waymo might be a real investment and not just an emergency profit reducer.
disillusioned 3y ago
Waymo _might_ be the sole survivor here... they are ABSOLUTELY trying their damndest with it. It's remarkable to not go a single day without seeing a driverless Waymo doing its thing. (I live in Central Phoenix, they're _everywhere_.) The core concept is being proven pretty well, in markets with good weather and good roads at least... whether they can achieve some sort of critical mass that allows them to recoup any of the investment, even on a single capitalized vehicle... who knows. I've heard each Jag costs ~$250k fully loaded... that's a lot of ~$14-on-average trips before breakeven, and obviously the trips aren't free. That all being said, riding in one feels like the actual future, and if they close in on this first-mover advantage and keep on keeping on, and strengthen their Uber integration, and open in more and more markets... there's a real chance they establish themselves and make this thing actually capture a significant portion of the trip economy. That being said, it's not generalized, so opening markets is expensive because they're all individually trained for each mile of road in the market, I expect they'll be functionally useless in bad winters (but that's not a dealbreaker, per se), and those operating expenses remain high. Though I do expect we'll begin to see those lower, now that they're so deep into the proof of the concept. (They're finally starting highway driving here in PHX, which is really the last hill to climb.)
- Workaccount2 3y ago
  I always imagined Google licensing the tech as opposed to spinning up a fully fledged national taxi service.
  - clhodapp 3y ago
    Interesting. I could imagine Uber mortgaging their whole market cap to acquire Waymo as a lifeline to staying relevant in the long term. They would essentially be "buying" what has always been their long-term product vision.
  - rogerbinns 3y ago
    The most valuable owner in this space is whoever you communicate with to tell them where you want to go. They get to offer you a price, they get to offer you alternative destinations, and they get to offer you "deals". For example that means that a different supermarket can make an offer you come to them instead, or you can be offered a different price should a different route be taken, a ride share happen, a journey delayed or brought forward, and numerous other possibilities. It isn't too dissimilar to typing what you are interested in to a search engine. That will be extremely lucrative. But for it to work, that entity will have to have ultimate control over where the vehicle goes. Everybody is going to want to have that ultimate control, and not cede it to someone else. That would make licensing not really work out since Google would retain control.
    - resolutebat 3y ago
      Color me skeptical, but I've never gotten in a car without having decided my destination first. I don't go to "any supermarket", I go to Supermarket X because they have the goods I need at a price I accept or the best promos that week or whatever. If letting your rideshare company decide your destination was really a thing, why wouldn't Uber be doing it already be doing it with human drivers?
      - d0gsg0w00f 3y ago
        > I've never gotten in a car without having decided my destination first. Not yet... > If letting your rideshare company decide your destination was really a thing, why wouldn't Uber be doing it already be doing it with human drivers? Because Uber isn't an advertising company. They're still chasing fares like scrubs
TulliusCicero 3y ago
Waymo seems like it'll go the distance. Clear market leader in the US, and it doesn't seem particularly close, even if it's taken them (and everyone else) longer than expected to start scaling. Cruise attempted to just start launching before the tech was really finished and it backfired horribly. Tesla is still doing Elon things, looks like the tech is mostly spinning its wheels as they work on yet another hardware revision that'll definitely handle self-driving this time.

javiramos 3y ago

What are some promising Google moonshots apart from Waymo?

xnx 3y ago
Drone delivery: https://wing.com/ https://wing.com/
- dekhn 3y ago
  there is so far only a tiny market for drone delivery and it seems like it would be unlikely to grow into a multibillion dollar business. Their competitors (who have more experience with shipping physical things) are also evaluating this with mixed success.

foota 3y ago

Most of the difference is explained by an increase in revenue while holding expenses constant: "Other Bets, which includes the Waymo self-driving car business and the Verily life sciences unit, reported revenue of $657 million, up from $226 million the year prior. Its loss narrowed to $863 million from $1.24 billion." So revenue up 400 million, and losses dropped by 400 million.

rdsubhas 3y ago

I guess the point being made by that comment is, it could be an accounting / book-shifting trick.

jsnell 3y ago
That theory doesn't make any sense. Both measures are moving in the same direction (i.e. both units are becoming more profitable). If it was some kind of revenue shifting trick, the numbers would be moving in opposite directions.