My belief is that ultimately monopolies are unstable.
Google's engine, which it has been specatacularly successful at, is obviously search. More specifically, it's search advertising. Google is a dominant player in display advertising (eg Google Ad Exchange, AdSense) but, at least when I worked there, these amounted to <10% of AdWords' revenue. They were a sideshow.
Chrome, Android, Maps and Youtube are all key parts of this engine. The latter three were acquisitions and that gets to the key point.
At some point a company becomes too large to innovate because no new business can compete, or will be allowed to compete, with the company's core business.
Google missed the social media boat for this very reason. Google+ came way too late. Google spent billions on this failed effort. The real mistake was not buying Twitter. I mean Google ultimately offered a rumored $6 billion for GroupOn at one point. They dodged a bullet on that one when GroupOn rejected the advance. Rumor also had it Google tried to buy Twitter in ~2010 when Twitter was seeking a $3 billion valuation.
Imagine if Google had slapped down $6 billion to buy Twitter. How much better off would they be?
There is a ton of process to do anything at Google. This matches my experience. And that's an issue but it's not the main issue.
Google's engine, which it has been specatacularly successful at, is obviously search. More specifically, it's search advertising. Google is a dominant player in display advertising (eg Google Ad Exchange, AdSense) but, at least when I worked there, these amounted to <10% of AdWords' revenue. They were a sideshow.
Chrome, Android, Maps and Youtube are all key parts of this engine. The latter three were acquisitions and that gets to the key point.
At some point a company becomes too large to innovate because no new business can compete, or will be allowed to compete, with the company's core business.
Google missed the social media boat for this very reason. Google+ came way too late. Google spent billions on this failed effort. The real mistake was not buying Twitter. I mean Google ultimately offered a rumored $6 billion for GroupOn at one point. They dodged a bullet on that one when GroupOn rejected the advance. Rumor also had it Google tried to buy Twitter in ~2010 when Twitter was seeking a $3 billion valuation.
Imagine if Google had slapped down $6 billion to buy Twitter. How much better off would they be?
There is a ton of process to do anything at Google. This matches my experience. And that's an issue but it's not the main issue.