4 ms·

This spurred me to look up a list of Google/Alphabet's historical acquisitions. I remembered that YouTube was M&A, of course, but I'd forgotten all about some

This spurred me to look up a list of Google/Alphabet's historical acquisitions. I remembered that YouTube was M&A, of course, but I'd forgotten all about some other companies that Alphabet bought over the years: * Motorola * Nest * DoubleClick * FitBit * Waze * DeepMind * Boston Dynamics Other things I totally forgot existed, like Songza and Picnik, wound up under Alphabet at some point. For some reason, Alphabet doesn't intuitively feel like a very acquisitive company, but they clearly are very active.

ipsum2 2y ago
They used to acquire/acquihire a ton of smaller startups, but that stopped for the past 4 years due to a different FTC.
BoredPositron 2y ago
It always looks like they don’t know what to do with the products after acquisition.
- islewis 2y ago
  It's because the motivation for these acquisitions doesn't have much to do with product. It's just a way to extinguish outside talent and innovation that could disrupt down the road.
  - blackjack_ 2y ago
    Certainly not. Doubleclick is much of the backbone of google advertising to this day.
jonny_eh 2y ago
Picasa (Lifescape) became Google Photos
manquer 2y ago
They are not ? Most of your references are more than a decade ago, (alongside Apple) compared to peers like Microsoft they are very much do not have acquisition culture . Mandiant is only large acquisition in the last 10 years > $1B which is very small stakes in todays VC ecosystem. Compare that to MS they have bought GitHub, LinkedIn, Activison, Nuance, Zenimax all well over $5B . Combined these alone is $100-120B, MS has also done plenty of mid budget buys too. Even more B2B/traditional tech like IBM (redhat, Hashicorp etc) or salesforce have been more active too.
shanemhansen 2y ago
Don't forget: Writely: Google didn't make Google docs. Android: Google didn't make Android. Alphabet is great at marketing themselves as makers. But what they really excel at is finding great ideas in the wild and making them mediocre.
- mschuster91 2y ago
  > Alphabet is great at marketing themselves as makers. But what they really excel at is finding great ideas in the wild and making them mediocre. Mediocre for users that is. For the stock price, quite the contrary. $GOOG has about tripled in market cap in five years (start 2020: 50 USD, today 166 USD). That is why acquisitions at this scale should be banned, period, no exceptions, and existing megacorps be broken up. Android has gotten so large and dominant, not even Amazon can run their own OS any more, much less any truly FOSS alternative, and there's no market pressure at all that would force Google to combat shit like deceptive ads in Play Store games. Google Search has gone utterly down the drain in usability but again, there's barely any competitor left and it's unviable to start one. Google Chrome still is the fastest browser around, its engine powering everything but Safari and Firefox, and the latter is all but gone in market share because again, Google's cash coffers fund development with which no one can compete. A free market actually requires some sort of regulation to make sure competitive pressure can exist, and the behemoths are so large that effects of scale and network / vertical integration exert a completely unhealthy pressure on both users and the few suppliers that remain.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

ipsum2 2y ago

They used to acquire/acquihire a ton of smaller startups, but that stopped for the past 4 years due to a different FTC.

BoredPositron 2y ago

It always looks like they don’t know what to do with the products after acquisition.

islewis 2y ago
It's because the motivation for these acquisitions doesn't have much to do with product. It's just a way to extinguish outside talent and innovation that could disrupt down the road.
- blackjack_ 2y ago
  Certainly not. Doubleclick is much of the backbone of google advertising to this day.

jonny_eh 2y ago

Picasa (Lifescape) became Google Photos

manquer 2y ago

They are not ? Most of your references are more than a decade ago, (alongside Apple) compared to peers like Microsoft they are very much do not have acquisition culture . Mandiant is only large acquisition in the last 10 years > $1B which is very small stakes in todays VC ecosystem. Compare that to MS they have bought GitHub, LinkedIn, Activison, Nuance, Zenimax all well over $5B . Combined these alone is $100-120B, MS has also done plenty of mid budget buys too. Even more B2B/traditional tech like IBM (redhat, Hashicorp etc) or salesforce have been more active too.

shanemhansen 2y ago

Don't forget: Writely: Google didn't make Google docs. Android: Google didn't make Android. Alphabet is great at marketing themselves as makers. But what they really excel at is finding great ideas in the wild and making them mediocre.

mschuster91 2y ago
> Alphabet is great at marketing themselves as makers. But what they really excel at is finding great ideas in the wild and making them mediocre. Mediocre for users that is. For the stock price, quite the contrary. $GOOG has about tripled in market cap in five years (start 2020: 50 USD, today 166 USD). That is why acquisitions at this scale should be banned, period, no exceptions, and existing megacorps be broken up. Android has gotten so large and dominant, not even Amazon can run their own OS any more, much less any truly FOSS alternative, and there's no market pressure at all that would force Google to combat shit like deceptive ads in Play Store games. Google Search has gone utterly down the drain in usability but again, there's barely any competitor left and it's unviable to start one. Google Chrome still is the fastest browser around, its engine powering everything but Safari and Firefox, and the latter is all but gone in market share because again, Google's cash coffers fund development with which no one can compete. A free market actually requires some sort of regulation to make sure competitive pressure can exist, and the behemoths are so large that effects of scale and network / vertical integration exert a completely unhealthy pressure on both users and the few suppliers that remain.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]