
Google Acquires Titan Aerospace, The Drone Company Pursued By Facebook - jeffpalmer
http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/google-acquires-titan-aerospace-the-drone-company-pursued-by-facebook/
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incision
Something unsettling about the feeling (founded or not) that a handful of tech
juggernauts have the ability to buy up seemingly whatever they want.

This along with the anti-headhunting collusion, sprawling campuses puts me in
mind of a Gibsonian future ruled by a handful corporate arcologies [0].

Has business always operated this way and I'm only now noticing because it's
happening closer to home?

0:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology)

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icegreentea
Businesses have pretty much always worked this way. If you accept that
efficiencies of scale are a thing, that network effects are real, and that
capital breeds capital, then you pretty much arrive at the conclusion that
capitalist systems will tend to grow towards consolidation and concentration
of power. Disruption is always a thing - corporations are still run by humans
and still subject to some weaknesses of human judgement, but concentration of
capital and power will tend to feedback on itself.

For example, take a look at the list of brands owned by P&G and
Johnson&Johnson.

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orblivion
Calculation problems are a thing too, though. A huge corporation is still
central planning, which isn't very efficient. That's why disruption happens,
at a large scale there's a lot more room for error. That is, if they really
are subject to market forces, which is always a good thing to question.

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uptown
So what's the grand vision with the huge shift Google is making towards
drones, robotics and automation? Does it provide them with a set of data about
the movement of goods and individuals unavailable through other avenues? Most
Google products tie back into some input useful for advertising. Is this the
same, or is it some grand branch towards expanding into something new?

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mrb
We bought Titan Aerospace to help us solve some problems such as : giving more
people access to Internet, monitoring environmental damage like deforestation,
helping during disaster relief, etc.

Disclosure: I work for Google. The above is all what employees are allowed to
share, and all I know (I don't even work within or with robotics groups).

~~~
debt
All these large tech advertising companies like Google and Facebook talk about
huge untapped emerging markets, about moving internationally. Yet these
emerging markets lack a very critical component: infrastructure. Yeah, great
you want to expand the reach of your ads to new countries but most of those
developing countries(3 billion people) still use feature phones and mostly
with voice/text.

So why would they wait for the infrastructure to be built?

Google can fly a fleet of autonomous, artificially intelligent, solar powered
mesh-connected internet drones across a wide geographic area(wider than what
traditional telecoms can offer) offering faster(albeit likely slower compared
to developed markets) and cheap internet. It'll practically run itself. They
then can turn around and license these drones to the governments of those same
developing markets where internet maybe slow or nonexistent or too costly to
build in traditional ways(laying pipe, etc).

It's brilliant and potentially a huge money maker due to their, again, first-
mover advantage. Facebook had it but blew their cash on da Rift.

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mark_l_watson
Google's stated reason for the purchase makes sense, providing more internet
connectivity, etc. I give them the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Off topic, but: my first two bosses at SAIC were Titan founders.

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ams6110
Read Spolsky's Strategy Letter V[1].

 _All else being equal, demand for a product increases when the prices of its
complements decrease._

Internet access complements all of Google's other products. It is in their
interest to commoditize it even further and make it cheaper. If I were Verizon
and Comcast I'd be worried.

1:
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html)

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yogi123
The behavior of public technology companies that throw off lots of cash is
entirely predictable. They are utterly shitty allocators of capital, esp when
run by "visionaries." Some easy predictions:

-This acquisition will have zero to negative return on investment, just like Motorola.

-Oculus acquisition for 2B will have zero to negative return on capital

-WhatsApp will have zero to negative return on capital

The abuse of shareholder cash at cash-rich tech companies like Apple,
Facebook, and Google is quite breathtaking to observe.

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3am
Google has a pretty good track record with acquisitions (YouTube, Android,
DoubleClick, Picasa... lots of smaller tuck-in acquisitions around their big
products). The Motorola is an extremely poor example, because it was defensive
against the Nortel patents/Rockstar consortium. Numerous analyses have shown
it was very cost effective on a per-patent basis after taking into account
Motorola's cash on hand, NOL credits, and the various parts of it they sold.

Edit: I couldn't find the terms of this deal, but the rumor was FB was
offering $60M USD, so it's probably on that order of magnitude. I don't think
it would be hard to make a business case for integrating this technology with
Maps, making satellite view closer to real-time while reducing their bill for
actual satellite imagery.

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elsewhen
I think this type of initiative might also be used to provide more accurate
location data for mobile users. accessing GPS satellites is sometimes
challenging in cities (where most mobile users are) and a fleet of drones
above each city could prove helpful.

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api
Why the hell would Facebook be interested in a drone company? Google makes
only slightly more sense.

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dm2
Slightly unrelated but I think that Facebook should setup a parent company
that has a different name.

Whenever I see the phrase, "Facebook has acquired X" I can't help but think
that the acquired company is both no longer trusted and not worth investing in
or using. That might not be rational but they're just not the type of company
that I think improves the value of their acquisitions.

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kevincrane
Comcast tried by rebranding much of itself as Xfinity a few years ago. As far
as I know, it didn't do much to sway public few once people realized they were
still the same thing.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/02/09/comcast-xfinity-
id...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/02/09/comcast-xfinity-
idUSN0515328620100209)

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ChuckMcM
Interesting move. More interesting that robotics companies are such hot
takeover targets these days.

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waps
Very interesting company. Your next internet router :
[http://titanaerospace.com/platforms/solara-50](http://titanaerospace.com/platforms/solara-50)

Can't quite compete with what SpaceX is going to do today, but ... very nice.
Doesn't look like they've actually built the thing yet though.

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Dorian-Marie
Returns a 404 now, here is the Google Cache version:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VxviNXD...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VxviNXDiM68J:titanaerospace.com/platforms/solara-50/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk)

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id
Interestingly, the link is still on their front page.

And they are using WordPress: [http://titanaerospace.com/wp-
admin](http://titanaerospace.com/wp-admin)

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techaddict009
Larry to Mark : So you acquired Whatsapp which I was planning to acquire..

No worries..

Here we go... Titan Aerospace !

#Joke

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stvn
nothin' to see here folks. +movealong

