

Google Announces 2010 Results and Management Changes  - andre3k1
http://investor.google.com/earnings/2010/Q4_google_earnings.html

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wingo
35 billion in the bank, adding 2.5 billion to that every quarter? Did I read
that right?

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ohashi
Not a bad position to be in.

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borism
not so great either.

(unless you think keeping your money in the bank while the economy is
reinflating is such a good idea, like some of you downvoters do)

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latch
There's a limit to how effective companies can be at spending large amounts of
cash. Uncontrolled growth can have negative impact. You can't simply make more
acquisitions and hire more staff because you have extra money. You have to be
as smart about spending $10Million when you have $30 billion as when you had
$50 million.

It probably doesn't help that both MS and Apple are sitting on huge (larger
than Google's) war chests. This kind of reserve provides a strategic advantage
- being the kid on the block that doesn't could be disaster.

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dstorrs
+1

Also, billions are harder to spend than millions, because purchases that big
change the environment.

For example: a small, unprofitable company makes purple widgets, even though
no one else thinks it's worth it to make purple widgets. Owning these guys
would give you a competitive advantage because their widget-making technology
coordinates well with your sprocket-making pipeline, so you acquire them for
$1B. Suddenly a flock of other companies will jump up to make purple widgets;
they will get acquired by your competitors, who can learn from your widget-
making mistakes. This all cuts down on the competitive advantage that made you
buy the company in the first place.

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orangecat
I misread that as April 1st initially and discounted it. Wow indeed. My
immediate reaction as a Google user is positive; my possibly uninformed sense
is that Eric has a greater capacity for evil than Larry or Sergei.

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Ixiaus
I agree, I think the restructuring decision will be beneficial - ever since
Larry and Sergey gave up their majority control (they now control less than
50% of the company, I think) Eric and the board have been taking Google down a
slightly different road. With this change, it should give more control back to
the founders while still keeping the excellent business decisions Schmidt has
made in the loop.

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danbmil99
What's happening is pretty self evident, esp with the knowledge that Schmidt
is selling as much stock as he possibly can. He's cashing out big time.

He obviously has strong disagreements with the founders, and believes that
their direction for the company is fraught with risk of some sort of
cataclysmic failure.

If you're a shareholder and care about profits, you probably want the guy who
can be 'a bit more evil'. The world is a crappy place, and nice guys don't
often finish first. My money's with Eric on this one.

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whakojacko
Wow wouldn't have seen this coming. Any ideas on what caused this change?
Seems like they are trying to move Schmidt to more of an operational role.

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colinprince
Ummm, profit?

