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This is a common refrain, sometimes used as a slight, as if Google is just another Don Draper firm, that just happens to have some tech in its portfolio. As a

This is a common refrain, sometimes used as a slight, as if Google is just another Don Draper firm, that just happens to have some tech in its portfolio. As a rank-and-file Googler, my personal experience is that most Google engineers perceive that we are a technology company and advertising is often off in the edges of their mind. Yes, advertising is the majority revenue product, but like many startups, the people working on moonshots are not thinking about the business model, they are thinking about the problem to be solved. When most people go work on a 20% project, some of which become top Google services, they don't start out thinking, for example, "How can I increase ad revenue by making voice recognition better."

OGinparadise 14y ago
they don't start out thinking, for example, "How can I increase ad revenue by making voice recognition better." No offense, yet ad revenue magically it increase quarter after quarter after quarter. Surprise? FYI: You are an ad company, a cutthroat and an annoying one too (I am about to use adblock.) Yes, advertising is the majority revenue product Consider the "moonshots" as HR advertising and to get Google press. Virtually all your earnings are because you twist things to get people to click on those expensive and annoying ads and you also buy politicians. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. Have you mined those asteroids yet? Sure got a lot of press out of it
- cromwellian 14y ago
  When you find a way to hire 10,000 top engineers and scientists and put them to work on exciting web services with a decent salary (deployed on the most scaleable and power efficient datacenters out there), much of which, the average person loves to use, but won't pay for, and without using tax dollars or scraping by on donations, let me know, I've love to do a start up with you. Did you pay for Netscape when they used to charge money? I assure you, revenue doesn't increase magically quarter by quarter, in case you haven't noticed, when Google started out, most of the population still wasn't online yet, and most advertising dollars were spent in print and video media. Most of the meteoric rise can be traced simply to growth in the online audience and a switch-over from print to digital, not somehow arm twisting someone to click on an ad, if anything, people are induced to click on ads by making them less annoying and more relevant, otherwise, they 'mentally adblock' them. You can believe what you want about motives, I only know what I experience everyday as far as others I know -- we like working on interesting or hard problems, just like any collection of geeky engineers and scientists. That I get paid to do what I'm passionate about, I personally feel grateful and lucky.
  - taligent 14y ago
    So what you are saying is that Google is a talented and large advertising company.
  - OGinparadise 14y ago
    "Most of the meteoric rise can be traced simply to growth in the online audience and a switch-over from print to digital" Until 2007 maybe, but now you're 85%-100% ads on all commercial topics and most users probably don't realize it yet. Face it, that's the truth. Enjoy your paycheck and stock grants but there's nothing to feel proud about your company. Every time business owners growl about less traffic and penalties from "unbiased Google", magically Google's revenue grow by another 30%. we like working on interesting or hard problems, just like any collection of geeky engineers and scientists. That I get paid to do what I'm passionate about Hard problems...like intercepting user intent and not sending them to sites but to Adwords links? That's what your real boss, Nikesh Arora said during his conference call. Or making the background as close to white and hide the ad disclaimers as possible? You sound Carmela Soprano "I'm just a housewife, cooking for my husband, I don't know where the money to support me comes from."
    - cromwellian 14y ago
      Oh snap!
    - nitrogen 14y ago
      Or making the background as close to white and hide the ad disclaimers as possible? The background actually becomes white at even slight vertical angles on cheap laptop LCDs; it seems to have been selected just for that purpose.
  - anon1385 14y ago
    >if anything, people are induced to click on ads by making them less annoying and more relevant, otherwise, they 'mentally adblock' them. or by disguising ads as a legitimate part of the page so that users click them by mistake, often leading people to download malware. Just about every software download page on the internet that has ads is full of Google served ads that lead to malware. This is what Google has turned the web into for people that don't use adblock: http://i.imgur.com/0vPdDYU.png http://i.imgur.com/0vPdDYU.png People have complained about this for years. Maybe doing some OCR on the ads you serve to filter out big fake 'Download' buttons isn't enough of an "interesting or hard problem" for you super-geniuses to waste your time on.
- RestlessMind 14y ago
  > you also buy politicians Citations please!
r00fus 14y ago
I love Google, but let's be honest. A company's source of revenue (and what it does with that revenue) determines what it is.
- cromwellian 14y ago
  The vast majority of all web businesses founded since the dot com era have had ads as their business model, because of either, failure to get a universal, easy to use, micropayment system standardized at the start of the Web, or because people came to experience surfing to be transaction-cost free, most people are unwilling to pay for web services, and if you think ads are annoying, how annoying is signing up for an account, inputting your credit card, and buying a service? It would be nice if people would pay for newspapers, blogs, Search, email, Facebook, et al, and in some cases, in Apple iOS, people seem culturally prone to pay, but for the most part, attempts at pay walls have failed. My only point is, if you focus only on the revenue source, you fail to differentiate between what the businesses actually do. If a school were to be funded by billboards on school buses, would you say it's an elementary school, or an advertising company? If the source of revenue actually drives what the company uses that revenue for, I think you have a point, I think it is arguable that Google reinvests most of profits in ads. If you look at Android or Chrome, they are both large projects, that did not start out to generate ad revenue, but both to improve mobile and the web, and to build a defensive moat that would prevent a competitor from controlling the on-ramps. Indeed, it seems Apple iOS generates far more ad revenue, so getting people to use Android actually reduces ad revenue. :)
  - taligent 14y ago
    You clearly don't understand Google. They earn over 95% of their revenue from SELLING advertising. The other parts of their business e.g. search, mail, maps consume advertising like other web businesses. You are trying to equate the selling from the consumption which is illogical.
    - jan_g 14y ago
      Yup, but you could say that for many IT companies. Why? Because most of them are getting money by utilizing advertising in one form or another. Is Twitter an advertising company? Is Facebook?
raverbashing 14y ago
Oh don't worry, that's exactly what Google wants you to think "Look, another pool in the office" I'm not saying it's bad. "the people working on moonshots are not thinking about the business model, they are thinking about the problem to be solved" And this is why Google is good at what it does. I would do the same. Each employee should focus on their own strengths.

OGinparadise 14y ago

they don't start out thinking, for example, "How can I increase ad revenue by making voice recognition better." No offense, yet ad revenue magically it increase quarter after quarter after quarter. Surprise? FYI: You are an ad company, a cutthroat and an annoying one too (I am about to use adblock.) Yes, advertising is the majority revenue product Consider the "moonshots" as HR advertising and to get Google press. Virtually all your earnings are because you twist things to get people to click on those expensive and annoying ads and you also buy politicians. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. Have you mined those asteroids yet? Sure got a lot of press out of it

cromwellian 14y ago
When you find a way to hire 10,000 top engineers and scientists and put them to work on exciting web services with a decent salary (deployed on the most scaleable and power efficient datacenters out there), much of which, the average person loves to use, but won't pay for, and without using tax dollars or scraping by on donations, let me know, I've love to do a start up with you. Did you pay for Netscape when they used to charge money? I assure you, revenue doesn't increase magically quarter by quarter, in case you haven't noticed, when Google started out, most of the population still wasn't online yet, and most advertising dollars were spent in print and video media. Most of the meteoric rise can be traced simply to growth in the online audience and a switch-over from print to digital, not somehow arm twisting someone to click on an ad, if anything, people are induced to click on ads by making them less annoying and more relevant, otherwise, they 'mentally adblock' them. You can believe what you want about motives, I only know what I experience everyday as far as others I know -- we like working on interesting or hard problems, just like any collection of geeky engineers and scientists. That I get paid to do what I'm passionate about, I personally feel grateful and lucky.
- taligent 14y ago
  So what you are saying is that Google is a talented and large advertising company.
- OGinparadise 14y ago
  "Most of the meteoric rise can be traced simply to growth in the online audience and a switch-over from print to digital" Until 2007 maybe, but now you're 85%-100% ads on all commercial topics and most users probably don't realize it yet. Face it, that's the truth. Enjoy your paycheck and stock grants but there's nothing to feel proud about your company. Every time business owners growl about less traffic and penalties from "unbiased Google", magically Google's revenue grow by another 30%. we like working on interesting or hard problems, just like any collection of geeky engineers and scientists. That I get paid to do what I'm passionate about Hard problems...like intercepting user intent and not sending them to sites but to Adwords links? That's what your real boss, Nikesh Arora said during his conference call. Or making the background as close to white and hide the ad disclaimers as possible? You sound Carmela Soprano "I'm just a housewife, cooking for my husband, I don't know where the money to support me comes from."
  - cromwellian 14y ago
    Oh snap!
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    Or making the background as close to white and hide the ad disclaimers as possible? The background actually becomes white at even slight vertical angles on cheap laptop LCDs; it seems to have been selected just for that purpose.
- anon1385 14y ago
  >if anything, people are induced to click on ads by making them less annoying and more relevant, otherwise, they 'mentally adblock' them. or by disguising ads as a legitimate part of the page so that users click them by mistake, often leading people to download malware. Just about every software download page on the internet that has ads is full of Google served ads that lead to malware. This is what Google has turned the web into for people that don't use adblock: http://i.imgur.com/0vPdDYU.png http://i.imgur.com/0vPdDYU.png People have complained about this for years. Maybe doing some OCR on the ads you serve to filter out big fake 'Download' buttons isn't enough of an "interesting or hard problem" for you super-geniuses to waste your time on.
RestlessMind 14y ago
> you also buy politicians Citations please!

r00fus 14y ago

I love Google, but let's be honest. A company's source of revenue (and what it does with that revenue) determines what it is.

cromwellian 14y ago
The vast majority of all web businesses founded since the dot com era have had ads as their business model, because of either, failure to get a universal, easy to use, micropayment system standardized at the start of the Web, or because people came to experience surfing to be transaction-cost free, most people are unwilling to pay for web services, and if you think ads are annoying, how annoying is signing up for an account, inputting your credit card, and buying a service? It would be nice if people would pay for newspapers, blogs, Search, email, Facebook, et al, and in some cases, in Apple iOS, people seem culturally prone to pay, but for the most part, attempts at pay walls have failed. My only point is, if you focus only on the revenue source, you fail to differentiate between what the businesses actually do. If a school were to be funded by billboards on school buses, would you say it's an elementary school, or an advertising company? If the source of revenue actually drives what the company uses that revenue for, I think you have a point, I think it is arguable that Google reinvests most of profits in ads. If you look at Android or Chrome, they are both large projects, that did not start out to generate ad revenue, but both to improve mobile and the web, and to build a defensive moat that would prevent a competitor from controlling the on-ramps. Indeed, it seems Apple iOS generates far more ad revenue, so getting people to use Android actually reduces ad revenue. :)
- taligent 14y ago
  You clearly don't understand Google. They earn over 95% of their revenue from SELLING advertising. The other parts of their business e.g. search, mail, maps consume advertising like other web businesses. You are trying to equate the selling from the consumption which is illogical.
  - jan_g 14y ago
    Yup, but you could say that for many IT companies. Why? Because most of them are getting money by utilizing advertising in one form or another. Is Twitter an advertising company? Is Facebook?

raverbashing 14y ago

Oh don't worry, that's exactly what Google wants you to think "Look, another pool in the office" I'm not saying it's bad. "the people working on moonshots are not thinking about the business model, they are thinking about the problem to be solved" And this is why Google is good at what it does. I would do the same. Each employee should focus on their own strengths.