

Storm clouds over Silicon Valley - bootload
http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/14/magazines/fortune/Storm_clouds.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008032009

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caudicus
It's interesting to think about the global nature of some companies (let's
take Google as an example) and how this recession and the US dollar's
depreciation is impacting them. First off:

"Revenues from outside of the United States totaled $2.32 billion,
representing 48% of total revenues in the fourth quarter of 2007, compared to
44% in the fourth quarter of 2006 and 48% in the third quarter of 2007. Had
foreign exchange rates remained constant from the third quarter of 2007
through the fourth quarter of 2007, our revenues in the fourth quarter of 2007
would have been $94 million lower. Had foreign exchange rates remained
constant from the fourth quarter of 2006 through the fourth quarter of 2007,
our revenues in the fourth quarter of 2007 would have been $195 million
lower." <http://investor.google.com/releases/2007Q4.html>

So Google basically brings in a little less than half of their revenues from
outside of the US.

Now those were their Q4 results - since then the dollar has depreciated ~4%
lower against a basket of currencies
(<http://quotes.ino.com/chart/?s=NYBOT_dx>)

So basically, we can see that Google is basically an exporter of ads, and it's
becoming cheaper for foreigners to buy those ads due to the depreciating
dollar.

Now, looking at the global picture, things are looking pretty bad in general.
Looking at the OECD's Composite Leading Indicator report from March 7th
(<http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/58/47/40240353.pdf>) you can see that there is
pretty much a global slow down effect going down in some of the world's major
economies (with Brazil and Russia as the exceptions).

So it seems like any company that has international exposure to ads might
actually have a slow down hedged by the depreciation of the dollar.

For those here who are bringing in money through ads, how much international
exposure do you have? Do you see it being worth it to try to get into the
international markets in an attempt to take advantage of the weaker dollar?

Also, has the "Google acquisition engine" slowed down at all? They don't seem
to have bought anything since October -
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_acquisitions>

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motoko
This is interesting, but how is this actionable? I'm still going to be working
on my startups.

