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This is insane. I can't think of an industry that google is not trying to compete in. Auto industry, space industry, internet of things industry (Nest), interne
by kirinan 11y ago
This is insane. I can't think of an industry that google is not trying to compete in. Auto industry, space industry, internet of things industry (Nest), internet/media industry, cable/internet provider industry, automobile industry, robotics industry, software industry, smartphone industry, pc industry now the telecom industry. I'm starting to expect Google to launch an airline here pretty soon. How can they possibly compete in so many spaces and compete well? Isn't this how Microsoft started doing business and failed at? I just am at a lost of words at Google's diversification strategy. I don't want to be a hater, but do we really want a singular company being the market leader at everything if they do end up succeeding at everything?
- aerovistae 11y agoThey won't be a market leader in everything. What do they lead aside from search, ads, and mobile OS? The really funny bit is that near the end of Steve Jobs's life (per the biography), Larry Page asked him for advice and of course he said "focus on doing a few things really well, cut out everything else." Seems Larry decided he knew better.
- inglor 11y ago> What do they lead aside from search, ads, and mobile OS? Browser, email, self-driving cars. Lots of other stuff too...
- joshuapants 11y ago> Browser Leading in memory usage perhaps
- neumino 11y agoLeading in security.
- yellowapple 11y agoNah, Internet Explorer takes the crown there.
- malchow 11y agoSlow clap
- icebraining 11y agoLeading in self-driving cars is debatable. They surely have the most visibility, but some car manufacturers and academic institutions like VisLab also have some impressive prototypes, e.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNcyuApIlFw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNcyuApIlFw (the autonomous car is the one in front)
- MrBuddyCasino 11y agoThat advice led to the closing down of many Google services. Apple doesn't just produce a single device, either.
- rev_bird 11y agoBut they make a line of laptops, a line of mobile devices, and some software. There's no iSpaceship or Apple Submarine(TM) yet -- if you told me Google had a sub bouncing around San Francisco Bay, I wouldn't even question it.
- icebraining 11y agoDo barges count? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_barges http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_barges
- presty 11y agothe barges are no longer in the bay area not a sub, but there was/is? this http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/01/07/google-launches-private-sf-bay-ferry-service-to-shuttle-workers/ http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/01/07/google-launches-...
- cylinder 11y agoLarry (and Sergey I believe) is an INTP, the business reflects that personality type.
- seri 11y ago> Seems Larry decided he knew better. Apparently he did. In the same biography, Isaacson wrote that "asking for advice to run a company" was just a clever way for Larry to visit Jobs in peace, playing to his ego, so to speak, as Jobs still held a grudge against Android. Google is a very different company from Apple anyway. At Apple, innovation runs top-down, from the likes of Jobs and Ive to Foxconn workers. At Google, innovation runs bottom-up.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- vishnuks 11y agoThey are not making any money right now. But the Investment in Spacex and Boston dynamics would be a huge pay off in the future.
- BorisMelnik 11y agoyou raise some really great questions. very rarely in history (or in the present) has a company entered so many spaces and be successful at it.
- higherpurpose 11y agoThey are in everything but they aren't a leader in everything. In some markets they actually accelerate competition, especially in ones where there have been long-time monopolists (Google Fiber).
- pbiggar 11y agoThis looks to me like a pure "commoditize your complements" play. All of Google's products require great mobile internet everywhere. By getting involved in that market, they can help make it much more competitive (at the moment, cell reception is expensive and shit). It's like Google Code. Google didn't particularly want to be in that business, but Sourceforge was complete shit, and the open source ecosystem was key to their business. So they competed, seriously improved on the status quo, and when something better came along (github), they backed away, job done. So leading this market doesn't matter to google. If they got completely outcompeted, I'd say they'd be delighted.
- grecy 11y agoI agree, and I always figured that's why they built Chrome. They needed the other browsers to step up their game, especially js performance so they could offer the kinds of web applications they wanted to.
- Rainymood 11y agoAnd then .. no one did and now we're all stuck with Chrome.
- organsnyder 11y agoQuite the contrary. The other browsers did greatly improve their game. However, Google got spoiled with their ability to add a new feature to the browser whenever a Google product would benefit. The cynical take on this is that Google just wanted to increase lock-in to its own browser; however, I think it's more a case that Chrome is a runtime environment for Google products as much as it is a web browser.
- teddyh 11y agoHmm, if this is true, then we should be able to expect similar changes in Chrome like the changes made in Acrobat Reader when Adobe thought they had complete lock-in in the PDF reader space.
- andrewstuart2 11y agoI can't easily think of an industry that the internet or computing hasn't yet touched. Makes sense that the company who made a name for themselves making sense out of data would do very well in a data-driven world and have plenty of places to go. Not that I'm convinced it's always for the best. Throw all that control into somebody's hands and even if they think they're doing what's best, they might make mistakes with far-reaching consequences.
- DaNmarner 11y agoThis is just another manifestation of software eating the world. What makes Google competitive in any industry? Its talent in software.
- rhino369 11y ago>What makes Google competitive in any industry? Having a goose who lays golden eggs (search + adsense) to subsidize development?
- magicalist 11y agoBasically any new business needs capital, so not sure what you mean here. Where do you think VCs get their money, for instance?
- rhino369 11y agoIt's about the cost of the capital, not the amount. VC capital is expensive since you give away equity.
- free2rhyme214 11y agoUse monopoly profits, provide a smart team and take risks. They don't dominate every industry but they have to diversify in industries to keep their shareholders happy which in turn is good for everyone.
- dntrkv 11y agoThey are not really competing in all of those industries, they might have a crazy project they are attempting, but they aren't really competition. Auto industry? I'm assuming you mean self driving cars, which, at this point, are still in the concept phase. Space industry? Did I miss something, is Google launching rockets? There are many other companies that are way more diversified than Google. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_Corporation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_Corporation Plus, expanding into a wireless carrier makes way more sense for Google than any of their other ventures. One of the limiting factors of internet use in the first-world is terrible carriers with data caps.
- seanflyon 11y ago> still in the concept phase Multiple generations of prototypes and hundreds of thousands of miles driven is well past the concept phase.
- dntrkv 11y agoThis just comes down to your definition of concept. I consider a prototype as a concept car that exists to show the feasibility of the concept but it has a ways to go before it is ready for production.
- seanflyon 11y agoThat makes sense. I would consider a concept to be an idea or a plan, not a working product.
- dzhiurgis 11y agoUnless it's raining
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- will_work4tears 11y ago
- trishume 11y ago*technology industry. Despite its impact on our lives it's important to remember that tech makes up just one segment of our massive economy. I have yet to see Google get into Aluminum smelting, residential construction or toothbrush manufacturing.
- sadface 11y agoDoing stuff like this helps Google perpetuate their reputation as a company that's doing "cool things that matter" despite the fact that, financially, they're just a big internet ads company. By doing these types of things Google has developed has such a good employment brand that they can get as many CMU CS Masters and Harvard MBAs as they want. They don't need 53,000 of the best and brightest people on earth working on AdWords, so letting some of these people loose on other markets kinda makes sense. Better to let them do it under google's umbrella than someone else's. And besides, they might actually succeed!
- eli 11y agoTo be fair, there's a big difference between marketing a new MVNO that runs on existing networks and actually expending capital to build network towers. So far Google is only doing the former.
- beambot 11y agoYou forgot healthcare [1,2], but point taken. ;-) [1] http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/introducing-our-smart-contact-lens.html http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/introducing-our-smart... [2] http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-to-collect-data-to-define-healthy-human-1406246214 http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-to-collect-data-to-define...
- Dirlewanger 11y agoTheir strategy is simple: they are doing whatever it takes in order to squeeze the most dollars out of you. If that means engaging in backroom deals with wireless competitors and creating with technologically innovative/awesome solutions for you to always be connected at the most optimal speed possible, they are going to do it.
- minusSeven 11y agoAlso remember if the product is not successful they just dump it and move on. As a former google reader and code.google user it feels kind of bad.
- ilaksh 11y agoThe Google is not a company.