meiroy Posted May 9, 2019 Share Posted May 9, 2019 This year's I/O is really impressive. What a fantastic company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted May 9, 2019 Author Share Posted May 9, 2019 This year's I/O is really impressive. What a fantastic company. What did you like most? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted May 14, 2019 Author Share Posted May 14, 2019 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-google-advertising/google-to-show-ads-on-homepage-of-mobile-site-app-idUSKCN1SK1YK Google will begin featuring ads on the homepage of its mobile website and smartphone app later this year, it said on Tuesday, giving the search engine a huge new supply of ad slots to boost revenue. Google will also start placing ads with a gallery of up to eight images in search results, potentially increasing ad supply further. The ads will appear on Google pages and apps globally. The gallery ads are part of a Google effort to make search results more visual, the company said. Ads with images are expected to garner more clicks, which could lead them being shown in more results, executives said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted May 19, 2019 Author Share Posted May 19, 2019 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-huawei-tech-alphabet-exclusive-idUSKCN1SP0NB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted May 27, 2019 Author Share Posted May 27, 2019 https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613559/google-ai-language-translation/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walkie518 Posted May 30, 2019 Share Posted May 30, 2019 https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/30/google-enterprise-users-escape-chrome-ad-blocking-restriction/ this will push freemium users to paying customers... likely resulting from losing some market share on ads, pretty smart though note sure what the rev impact might be... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted May 30, 2019 Author Share Posted May 30, 2019 https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/30/google-enterprise-users-escape-chrome-ad-blocking-restriction/ this will push freemium users to paying customers... likely resulting from losing some market share on ads, pretty smart though note sure what the rev impact might be... Ad blocking will still work on Chrome, just a certain very efficient API that won't. Most of the ad blocking done on the other API is from Adblock Plus and uBlock that are partners with Google and let some "quality" ads through and block the crap, which is good for Google. Some discussion of all this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20044430 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spekulatius Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/e46c1558-7ccf-11e9-81d2-f785092ab560 Manhattan building is a 100x Bagger in 22 years. Imagine buying this with leverage... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted June 6, 2019 Author Share Posted June 6, 2019 https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/06/google-to-acquire-analytics-startup-looker-for-2-6-billion/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHDL Posted June 9, 2019 Share Posted June 9, 2019 There was a nice, thought provoking article in Barron’s the other day that points to a risk with GOOG (and FB and AMZN) that the market may be underestimating at the moment: https://www.barrons.com/articles/the-vc-bubble-is-putting-established-companies-at-risk-51559907001 The author’s argument is that a lot of VC money has been flowing into low quality startups/businesses that are really more like Ponzi schemes and that a big chunk of that funding has been spent on Google/Facebook ads and AWS. So if/when this party ends, the author argues, GOOG/FB/AMZN investors may be among the many losers. This naturally caught my attention (note: long), and so I spent a few hours looking up some numbers to see if I could get a rough sense of how big of a deal this might be. Here are a few data points: - According to crunchbase.com, the total dollar volume of VC funding in 2018 was around $340bn(!). About 50% of that was raised by US-based companies and about 40% of it was early stage funding. - The word on the street (according to people like Chamath P. and others) is that about 40% of VC funding tends to be spent on Google/Facebook ads and AWS. - 2018 revenue for Google, Facebook, and AWS combined was around $220bn. So taken together, it does seem like the revenue impact could be significant for these tech giants if VC funding were to dry up in a major way. Just something to consider. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cameronfen Posted June 9, 2019 Share Posted June 9, 2019 There was a nice, thought provoking article in Barron’s the other day that points to a risk with GOOG (and FB and AMZN) that the market may be underestimating at the moment: https://www.barrons.com/articles/the-vc-bubble-is-putting-established-companies-at-risk-51559907001 The author’s argument is that a lot of VC money has been flowing into low quality startups/businesses that are really more like Ponzi schemes and that a big chunk of that funding has been spent on Google/Facebook ads and AWS. So if/when this party ends, the author argues, GOOG/FB/AMZN investors may be among the many losers. This naturally caught my attention (note: long), and so I spent a few hours looking up some numbers to see if I could get a rough sense of how big of a deal this might be. Here are a few data points: - According to crunchbase.com, the total dollar volume of VC funding in 2018 was around $340bn(!). About 50% of that was raised by US-based companies and about 40% of it was early stage funding. - The word on the street (according to people like Chamath P. and others) is that about 40% of VC funding tends to be spent on Google/Facebook ads and AWS. - 2018 revenue for Google, Facebook, and AWS combined was around $220bn. So taken together, it does seem like the revenue impact could be significant for these tech giants if VC funding were to dry up in a major way. Just something to consider. I know that you (or someone else), has bee making this point before. These sources really put it into focus. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHDL Posted June 9, 2019 Share Posted June 9, 2019 Yes, I’d say the idea has been in the air for a while now. There was a guy who put out a bear case for AWS along these lines like 4 years ago, IIRC. He was way too early obviously. My sense is that now we’re getting pretty close to a point where the thesis is actionable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
obtuse_investor Posted June 11, 2019 Share Posted June 11, 2019 Interesting twist by Google on the classic subscription model: Google revealed more about its Stadia streaming games service (console quality games on any recent device that can run the Chrome browser). People had assumed that you'd pay a monthly subscription with lots of games bundled in that price, but instead the use is free with the games costing normal ($50+) prices. So, this isn't Netflix for games - you just don't have to buy any hardware other than the ($69) controller. Always interesting to look at the user curve for subscription models - a low price (eg $10/month) brings in more users, but does that make up for capping the revenue from your whales (the people happy to buy $50+ games every month)? source: https://www.ben-evans.com/newsletter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cameronfen Posted June 11, 2019 Share Posted June 11, 2019 Yes, I’d say the idea has been in the air for a while now. There was a guy who put out a bear case for AWS along these lines like 4 years ago, IIRC. He was way too early obviously. My sense is that now we’re getting pretty close to a point where the thesis is actionable. I'd say the 150 billion number is too big unless AWS gets like 100 billion from start ups (I dont really want to invest in amazon so didn't spend any time there). Total smb internet marketing spend is only 60 billion. Marketing epxenditures as a precentage of revenue is only 15% or so, social is just 4% of revenue. So I have a hard time believing the 40% of incremental vc funding goes to google or fb ads. That being said 30-40 billion dollars is nothing to sneeze at. Not all of it will be lost, and again these companies are long term compounders and if this happens its probably a temporary imparement of profits, but definiely interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHDL Posted June 11, 2019 Share Posted June 11, 2019 Yes, I’d say the idea has been in the air for a while now. There was a guy who put out a bear case for AWS along these lines like 4 years ago, IIRC. He was way too early obviously. My sense is that now we’re getting pretty close to a point where the thesis is actionable. I'd say the 150 billion number is too big unless AWS gets like 100 billion from start ups (I dont really want to invest in amazon so didn't spend any time there). Total smb internet marketing spend is only 60 billion. Marketing epxenditures as a precentage of revenue is only 15% or so, social is just 4% of revenue. So I have a hard time believing the 40% of incremental vc funding goes to google or fb ads. That being said 30-40 billion dollars is nothing to sneeze at. Not all of it will be lost, and again these companies are long term compounders and if this happens its probably a temporary imparement of profits, but definiely interesting. Right, the key question here is whether Chamath’s 40% is something that applies only to, say, US-based early stage startups, or it is more universal. If it’s the former, I think you’re right that the maximum revenue impact will be around $30bn between Google, Facebook, and AWS. If it’s the latter, we have a much bigger problem… The worst case scenario for current investors I think is one where VC funding dries up, the companies take a big hit to revenue, and their stock valuations go down as people start to realize that their growth over the last several years was not really a secular trend but rather a temporary VC-fueled boom that is not coming back anytime soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castanza Posted June 12, 2019 Share Posted June 12, 2019 Yes, I’d say the idea has been in the air for a while now. There was a guy who put out a bear case for AWS along these lines like 4 years ago, IIRC. He was way too early obviously. My sense is that now we’re getting pretty close to a point where the thesis is actionable. I'd say the 150 billion number is too big unless AWS gets like 100 billion from start ups (I dont really want to invest in amazon so didn't spend any time there). Total smb internet marketing spend is only 60 billion. Marketing epxenditures as a precentage of revenue is only 15% or so, social is just 4% of revenue. So I have a hard time believing the 40% of incremental vc funding goes to google or fb ads. That being said 30-40 billion dollars is nothing to sneeze at. Not all of it will be lost, and again these companies are long term compounders and if this happens its probably a temporary imparement of profits, but definiely interesting. Right, the key question here is whether Chamath’s 40% is something that applies only to, say, US-based early stage startups, or it is more universal. If it’s the former, I think you’re right that the maximum revenue impact will be around $30bn between Google, Facebook, and AWS. If it’s the latter, we have a much bigger problem… The worst case scenario for current investors I think is one where VC funding dries up, the companies take a big hit to revenue, and their stock valuations go down as people start to realize that their growth over the last several years was not really a secular trend but rather a temporary VC-fueled boom that is not coming back anytime soon. You also have to think about why VC cash might dry up? Certainly if we hit a recession it would affect the flow of VC capital. Not to mention I believe a recession will severely affect Amazon and their already over ambitious logistics projects. Couple this with the inevitable AWS market share loss as Microsoft pushed Azure (recently partnered with Oracle), and other companies gain some share. And then the cherry on top is the current governmental involvement. Personally I don't invest in Amazon. They seem to highly levered and priced beyond perfection. They have primarily grown in a bull market and competitions is always improving. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHDL Posted June 12, 2019 Share Posted June 12, 2019 You also have to think about why VC cash might dry up? For sure. I think there are a few possibilities. One is that unicorns like Uber keep losing money and their stock prices keep going down, maybe a few of them go bankrupt, and that makes the big institutional investors who funded those companies through VCs less interested in doing more deals. Another is that foreign (e.g., Chinese) investors start pulling out their money for political reasons. Or, like you say, it could just be a recession that makes people feel like they “can’t afford” to put more money in VC. I’m actually not certain if so many VC funded businesses really are effectively Ponzi schemes, but if they are I’m sure this will all end like they always do: they end when they run out of people who will give them enough money to keep the scheme going. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wisowis Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 Q2: https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/2019Q2_alphabet_earnings_release.pdf?cache=3d0a3db Revenue +19% yoy (+22% constant currency) EPS $14.21 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LightWhale Posted September 16, 2019 Share Posted September 16, 2019 Recent research by Bridgewater places specific numbers for the above discussion on VC spending: *Tech start-ups spent $44bn on advertising and cloud computing from Facebook, Google and Amazon last year * spending by private tech start-ups made up about 10 per cent of the revenue of tech giants in 2018 * The $44bn they spent on Amazon Web Service, Google and Facebook advertising compared with roughly $9bn spent in 2013, which accounted for about 6 per cent of the tech giants’ revenues. From FT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castanza Posted September 16, 2019 Share Posted September 16, 2019 Recent research by Bridgewater places specific numbers for the above discussion on VC spending: *Tech start-ups spent $44bn on advertising and cloud computing from Facebook, Google and Amazon last year * spending by private tech start-ups made up about 10 per cent of the revenue of tech giants in 2018 * The $44bn they spent on Amazon Web Service, Google and Facebook advertising compared with roughly $9bn spent in 2013, which accounted for about 6 per cent of the tech giants’ revenues. From FT. Interesting for sure. Thanks for sharing. Here is a link https://www.ft.com/content/d0ece5b8-d5d3-11e9-8367-807ebd53ab77 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LC Posted September 17, 2019 Share Posted September 17, 2019 Interesting analysis done for those invested in this area: https://growthbadger.com/traffic-study/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=k-share_entrepreneur The niche that is most reliant on Google is Health and Medical, with 87.85% of its traffic coming from search. The niche that is least reliant on Google is Crypto, with 45.74% of its traffic coming from search. Facebook delivers 65.36% of all social media traffic: more visits per month than all other social networks combined. Instagram drives very little traffic: under 1% overall across all niches. Even fashion and beauty brands that were launched by Instagram influencers (e.g. Kylie Cosmetics) receive less than 5% of their monthly visits from Instagram — while search brings in about 10 times as many. The niche that is most reliant on Facebook is Business and Marketing, which gets 13.52% of its traffic from the network. Facebook is the most important social network for every niche except two: Design and Development (for which the top network is YouTube) and Crypto (for which it is Twitter). Google drives 8 times more traffic than all social media networks combined. Search is the single largest traffic source for every niche, and in most industries it drives the majority of the web traffic. The average top blog gets 66.47% of its traffic from search, of which 99.77% is organic and only 0.23% is paid. Reddit drives over 3 times as much traffic to blogs as YouTube. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted October 16, 2019 Author Share Posted October 16, 2019 https://stratechery.com/2019/google-and-ambient-computing/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted October 28, 2019 Author Share Posted October 28, 2019 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-fitbit-m-a-alphabet-exclusive/exclusive-google-owner-alphabet-in-bid-to-buy-fitbit-idUSKBN1X71NY Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CorpRaider Posted October 29, 2019 Share Posted October 29, 2019 Good. Please sweet little 5 lb 10 oz baby google, develop good android wearables. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chesko182 Posted November 7, 2019 Share Posted November 7, 2019 good article explaining how DoubleClick and AdWords works https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-google-edged-out-rivals-and-built-the-worlds-dominant-ad-machine-a-visual-guide-11573142071?mod=hp_lead_pos5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now