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Google Launches Cloud Platform for Startups
- hyperliner 12y agoOne word: $100k
- icebraining 12y agofor one year.
- spacefight 12y agoIf you're eligible. Some of us are not.
- Kurtz79 12y agoOf Cloud Platform credit. Still it could mean quite a bit for storage/bandwidth/instance intensive apps.
- woodhull 12y agoIf nothing else, use the hardware to mine bitcoins and convert to cache for more runway.
- DanielBMarkham 12y agoWhich is why they're restricting it to folks from an approved list.
- bhouston 12y ago> convert to cache hehe.
- _delirium 12y agoMining bitcoins on a cloud platform is a net loss even if the CPU time is free: it'll take you more labor time to set up than you'll gain. If you burn $100k in Google Cloud compute time on mining across hundreds of machines, you'll net something like $30.
- abritishguy 12y agoYour calculations are horrifically wrong.
- _delirium 12y agoHave you taken a look at what CPU mining pays recently? It's a rounding error from zero. A modern Xeon does around 5-10 Mhash/core/s, while ASIC mining is measured in Ghash/s. Leave it on for a year and you'll mine an upper bound of 0.00004-0.00008 BTC/core, according to https://alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator https://alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator (that's even discounting future difficulty increases, so is an optimistic estimate). That's 2-4 cents/core/year. If you have 1000 such cores going full-stop for the year, you'll net... $20-$40.
- abritishguy 12y agoBitcoin isn't the only cryptocurrency.
- meowface 12y agoI think his calculations are off, but his general point is pretty accurate. If you're doing pure CPU mining, even $100k worth of hardware won't generate you that much money per week. As a pure guess I'm going to assume the actual return you'd see is a few hundred dollars per week.
- abritishguy 12y agoDepends on the cryptocurrency, he used bitcoin in his follow up to my comment. CPU mining of bitcoin is horrendous (you can get a cheap USB stick that can mine as much as an expensive i7 processor) but other cryptocurrencies were specifically designed to make the gap between GPU and CPU mining much smaller and make ASICs not economically viable.
- fizzbar 12y agoPlease enlighten us then, what CPU mined crypto currency is best for this?
- dragonwriter 12y agoCache is not the same thing as cash.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- aioprisan 12y agoThis is only for incubated startups: "In an approved Accelerator, Incubator or VC fund"
- calgaryeng 12y ago> This offer is available to startups that meet the following criteria: > - In an approved Accelerator, Incubator or VC fund Why is this a thing? Not everyone wants to build their startup through venture capital, or an accelerator. This just reinforces the existing "permission-based" startup ecosystem.
- xedarius 12y agoCouldn't agree more, I even go as far to say Google seem a little out of touch here. Would this offer have helped Google become Google, probably not.
- meowface 12y agoIt's how they're handling risk, so that they can give away the $100,000 in credit without having to spend a lot of time doing due diligence and confirming that a certain startup company is at least somewhat feasible.
- morganvachon 12y agoGoogle probably doesn't want every Kickstarter/Indiegogo project applying for the program. It's likely a risk thing; if the startup is backed by a "real" VC firm, that firm is taking most of the risk. Google is just providing a few extra rungs on the ladder others built.
- walterbell 12y agoIt's effectively a subsidy to accelerators: $100K of risk capital being matched by $100K of hosting, doubling the initial runway for a startup which needs that level of capacity.
- alandarev 12y agoThough that $100k balance expires in a single year. If your server bills are $100k for a first year start-up company, you are doing something VERY VERY wrong.
- cdnsteve 12y agoBut if moving off your current platform and to Google's worth it? One year goes fast.
- jacquesm 12y agoIt's moving the other way that will get you. And that will likely wipe out any savings and then some.
- sjuncal11 12y agoMoving to GCP takes a bit of an idealogical shift, but moving off Google is pretty simple if you use AppScale. That might be the best option for these startups; take advantages of the free services from Google and move away after a year if you need to.
- dragonwriter 12y agoAppScale is an alternative implementation of AppEngine, but AppEngine isn't the whole of Google Cloud Platform.
- tim333 12y agoYeah, there are some horror stories eg. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1927903 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1927903 4 years old that, things may be better now.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- noso 12y ago"In an approved Accelerator, Incubator or VC fund" I also think this is a load of baloney.
- brudgers 12y agoAsking myself how this makes business sense. Answering myself that it only does if Google hits a homerun based on: + Vendor/plat-form lock-in. + Data mining startups' traffic. + Access to startups' code and data. + Ability to pull the plug. For Vendor/Platform lock-in this could be virtual, ie the burden of switching the code base for administrative tasks to Amazon or Azure or some other provider could be prohibitive. Likewise for architectural layout. In the bigger picture, is this a first foray into the space where MicroSoft Bizspark lives? http://blog.codinghorror.com/content/images/uploads/2014/02/6a0120a85dcdae970b01a3fcc55683970b-800wi.png http://blog.codinghorror.com/content/images/uploads/2014/02/...
- jedc 12y agoPoints 2-4 would involve Google violating (likely) their own Ts&Cs with customers and (possibly?) state/federal law. But I think your Point 1 is highly likely. How many startups are going to build on Google's Cloud Platform, then after a year port everything to AWS, particularly if Google can prove that they're cheaper or at least cost-competitive with similar feature set. (Assuming that's true, of course, and that you don't need something specific to AWS)
- skj 12y agoJust to reinforce this... (I am a Google Cloud Platform engineer) Google's internal data, which is mined (and audited), and the Cloud datacenters/data, are hosted entirely separately (though that's as much to protect us from you as you from us). We do not do anything with data stored by cloud platform customers.
- brudgers 12y agoWhat exactly prohibits the company for which you work from doing this, e.g. can you reference specific state or Federal laws or agency rules which prohibit this, or on the civil side, specific terms and conditions of the company's standard service contract? Absent these, what is the business case for providing this service at no cost to the qualified companies? As I indicated, I don't see a first order monetization strategy and the second order strategies I have proposed seem consistent with the second order strategies general employed by the company.
- swalsh 12y agoMaybe it's different for the cloud platform, but while I love Google, and Google products, i'd never trust them to support my business. Support matters a lot, and Google hasn't established a good reputation there. Azure is my choice for the moment.
- erik123 12y agoI wonder what would be wrong with a few Digital Ocean or Kimsufi VPS or microserver systems? If managing your own server daemons is too hard, I wonder what that person is doing in the field of computing?
- Goranek 12y agoTrusting cheap vps company to host your business apps isn't a smart idea. Btw what makes you capable of deciding who should or shouldn't work in the field of computing?
- tim333 12y agoGoogle and AWS provide a lot of things that Digital Ocean don't. Auto scaling to millions with Google, so much stuff with AWS that you can't keep track of it. (eg "Today, the AWS Marketplace contains more than 1,000 listings in 24 categories ranging from big data to bug-tracking to business intelligence"). That said for your typical startup with a small number of users the simpler providers may be the way to go.
- iagooar 12y agoSo boostraped startups, like mine, that would need /profit from it the most, are explicitly excluded. Well, Google, we didn't need your money anyway.
- jacquesm 12y agoIt's not money, it's credits.
- steakejjs 12y agoMy biggest objection is the "approved VC" rule. Being from Washington DC, if I were to create a startup and get funding, am I on the approved list? I doubt they would have heard of the VCs out here (I don't know of many tech VCs). Seems like it will be really easy for them just to pick big names, change/bend the rules for them to ensure they make a lot of money. It is good for their bottom line but bad for most out there.
- raldi 12y ago> I doubt they would have heard of the VCs out here Then those VCs should write to CloudPlatformStartups@google.com and get themselves added to the list.
- jastanton 12y agoOr you should just email them and state your case regardless of if you're on the list or not. Remember they are human beings on the receiving end of that email. I doubt they are getting swarmed by emails and wouldn't mind hearing from you. The worst thing that happens is they say no or ignore you and that's that.
- skj 12y ago> I doubt they are getting swarmed by emails HAH! > and wouldn't mind hearing from you. Probably not :)
- ing33k 12y agoThe eligibility criteria is not something specific to Google . Almost every cloud hosting provider has similar criteria, and I think it makes sense from their perspective that a Funded/ Accelerated startup is more likely to become a paid customer . https://cloud.google.com/developers/startups/ https://cloud.google.com/developers/startups/ http://aws.amazon.com/activate/portfolio-detail/ http://aws.amazon.com/activate/portfolio-detail/ https://apply.rackspacestartups.com/apply https://apply.rackspacestartups.com/apply
- erik123 12y agoFocus on building your product and don't worry about complex infrastructure. Google manages your application, database, and storage servers so you don't have to. Very seductive of simple minds. Congratulations, Google, you have discovered of how to start fishing for the bottom of the barrel ...
- freakonom 12y agoBetween the lines: Google has calculated that ExpectedLockinValue(given(ventureFunded)) + SillyPRBoost.value > ExpectedUsage($100k/yr) Or, in other words, Google believes for the venture-funded cohort, giving you a $100k option now will set them up to take significantly more later. They also don't want to spend any effort administrating (vetting) this program. I don't think this is confusing or insulting. Google's cards are plainly on the table, and as always they're here to make a profit.
- skj 12y agoYes, I think it's clear that this is not charity, but spending <=$100,000 on EXTREMELY well-targeted advertising.
- jfasi 12y agoGoogle gets a customer and free advertising, the company gets 100k worth of free computing resources. It's called a "win-win." It's not quite a "free lunch," but it's "one of the main ways in which healthy business gets done."
- mtbcoder 12y agoNot to nitpick, but the site states $100K for 1 year, which seems like a "use or lose" type deal. So if your start up doesn't burn through that much in hosting/storage/computing, you aren't really getting $100k in free computing resources.
- fleaflicker 12y agoI'm surprised nobody has mentioned the most obvious (and innocuous) motivation: to expose young developers to google's cloud platform so that they'll be comfortable with it when they become big-time CTOs in a few years. The network effects for cloud services are nowhere near as strong as they were for operating systems (end users don't care which underlying platform is used) but there is an advantage to having more developers familiar with your service.
- bradleysmith 12y ago
- god_bless_texas 12y agoThis is awesome, now AWS will offer $150,000 to use theirs with no accelerator requirement.
- skj 12y agoSounds like 150k in free bitcoins to whomever wants to jump on that deal, to me.
- malanj 12y agoThis really speaks to Amazon's dominance in the space. Over the past year I've been approach by Google reps with increasingly insane offers of free hosting. This move seems to be a whole new level. I still wonder "is it worth not doing something on Amazon?" $100k is a lot of money, but how much will most startups spend on hosting in the first year anyway? Unless you're specifically focused on infrastructure, in which case you probably won't choose your provider (i.e. the key partner in your business) based on free credit.
- jacquesm 12y agoThis is just a clever ploy to get the most promising start-ups locked in before they realize they're paying through the nose for a commodity. And don't forget that it's credits not money. You can't take this and spend it at leaseweb or digitalocean if that's your preferred way of solving things, nor will they pay you to dis-entangle from the lock-in once you want to move.
- miles932 12y agoHelp me see the lock-in: you run Docker containers on managed VM's, and if you want to move them somewhere else, well, you do. ?
- jacquesm 12y agoProvisioning, scaling, storage.
- miles932 12y agokubernetes, python, riak. certainly myriad options at each of those tiers which are OSS, easily deployable on cloud/on-premise, and well understood. If those things are a challenge for your org, I'd recommend that a Cloud provider might be the way to go!
- Kurtz79 12y agoRemember that you can start using the platform for free, today. They have free daily quotas (I know for certain in the case of GAE, but I believe for the other services as well), which are kind of low, but good enough for proofs of concept and prototyping. Still, this is a commercial product, and running it implies a cost to Google. Thinking that they would give away 100K worth of services to anybody that asks for it is unrealistic.
- skj 12y agoI don't believe there are any services other than GAE with free tiers. Edit: someone mentioned bigquery, which I haven't verified but seems plausible.
- stephenaevans 12y agoThis headline is pretty misleading. It should be Google Launches Cloud Platform for Startups That Are Part Of Approved Accelerators
- wiradikusuma 12y agoNo international Accelerator/Incubator?
- darklrd 12y agoI wish bootstrapped startups were also eligible.
- claudiusd 12y agoHmm... it seems like the data captured from a service like this would be very valuable to Google's venture arm. Even if they can't inspect the details of your environment, I'm sure they're still privy to metadata like resource utilization, deploy frequency, what stack you're on, etc. They'll be able to sort a bunch of early-stage startups on this information and cherry-pick the ones with the best characteristics without holding a single meeting.
- ZenoArrow 12y agoI'm not eligible, but this could still be positive for me... if it means Google Cloud starts supporting a greater range of programming languages. Right now the options are very limited compared to something like EC2.
- vgt 12y agoYou must be talking about AppEngine specifically, which is PaaS (Elastic Beanstalk is similar, and only supports a handful of languages as well). Google Compute Engine doesn't have PaaS-like restrictions, much like EC2.
- pmontra 12y agoI'd say that if you want to fund a startup with $100,000 you go meet that startup and get to know it very well. Google is relying on somebody else to make that assessment so my guess is that the cost of those services to Google is much lower than those $100,000, maybe much much lower than that. They sure have unused capacity in their server farm, network, storage, etc. I'm not saying that they're doing an advertising stunt for free but $100,000 worth of anything doesn't necessarily means that $100,000 are leaving Google's pockets.
- neilellis 12y agoI have to agree with a lot of the comments here, the very people who need the help. The ones who are doing it the hard way, striking out on their own and grafting on only their own money/debt could really do with a helping hand here and there. But time after time we're disqualified because we're not in an incubator. Our businesses are our incubators, our customers are our incubators. Why not woo us? Why not offer us some help so we get hooked into your products? I'd love to see the stats on survival rates between bootstrapped and funded :-) Come on guys, stop adding the 'approved accelerator' nonsense - startup != accelerator !
- vgt 12y agoFor all of you worried that this is for VC-backed startups only, Google offers $500 coupon codes (which should be plenty to bootstrap a concept). Feel free to ping me. In addition, both AppEngine and BigQuery have free usage tiers.
- neilellis 12y agoI'm not being snarky I honestly think you may misunderstand the term bootstrapping. We, for example, are not making a profit yet and would go through that ($500) in less than 3 weeks. The only difference between bootstrapping and incubators is where the funding comes from.
- fixedd 12y agoCan I get $500 worth of Adwords? :)
- glimmung 12y agoOffering a very large freebie to a relatively very small no. of "qualifying" start-ups all of whom already have a degree of mentoring and investment sends an interesting message about Google's world-view and objectives. If they'd offered a small freebie to a large number of much more liberally defined start-ups, I would have been much more impressed. This has no relevance at all to my own modest start-up, but feels like a gratuitous poke in the eye, and makes me think less of Google for having a tin ear. I'm sure that they've teased and disappointed many more people with that headline than this programme will help.
- wj 12y agoThe did offer Google Apps for Business for free for years to anybody who called themselves a business. You can still use almost all of their services for your business (Drive, Apps, Gmail) for free. They'll even give you a free phone number and voicemail box. I'd call all of that more than a small freebie.
- glimmung 12y agoSure - and I've used many of those facilities (still am, in fact), and I appreciate them. My intended point was really their miscommunication here - they exclude well over 99% of the organisations that consider themselves start-ups, and so the headline sets many up for disappointment. A better choice of wording would have sent a very different message.
- Shtirlic 12y agoI think Google want to buy successful projects running already in their infrastructure, because integration steps are lengthy and hard in big companies.
- seanmccann 12y agoThe "less than $500k in revenue" requirement is more limiting than one would think.
- dp2web 12y agoLooks more like an act of desperation due to the fact that Google is quickly losing the cloud wars to Microsoft, Amazon & VMWare.