
Things I Didn't Know About Google (also: the worst VC decision ever) - jaltucher
http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/03/10-unusual-things-about-google/
======
paul
False history.

The Applied Semantics software was not needed to "generate 99% of its revenues
at IPO time". They owned the trademark "AdSense", but the actual software used
by Google was written by Google. Also, the product known as AdSense (at that
time) was just for content targetted ads, not the search ads which produce
most of the profits, so his bit of trivia is actually double wrong.

~~~
zeroplus1
This is from an article about the Google press release when they bought A.S.:
" Google said that Applied Semantics' products and engineering team will
strengthen Google's search and advertising programs, including its "fast-
growing content-targeted advertising offering"" . At the time, Applied
Semantics had a license deal with Overture, which was also doing content-
targeted advertising and AS software was used to enable it." My guess is
whatever Google had in place was significantly enhanced by the A.S. software.

~~~
paul
Your guess is wrong.

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diego
That's like saying that not buying the winning lottery ticket was a bad
decision. You did the best with the information you had at the time.

Drinking and driving is a bad decision. Putting all your eggs in one basket is
a bad decision. Passing on a given investment opportunity is just everyday
business for a VC.

~~~
metageek
But making investment decisions while playing Defender is harder to justify.

~~~
jaltucher
Although I will add that Defender was the all-time best game. Angry Birds vs
Defender? I'll take Defender any day.

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dools
_"it was about how the jews control Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc. The
funny thing about this particular site is that it had Google Ads all over
it."_

I actually thought about this the other day in the context of how important
Facebook was during revolutionary activity in Arab nations and the action
Facebook took to protect people's passwords and privacy during the civil
unrest in Tunisia.

My first thought was that maybe that would take the wind out of the sails of
the "Jewish Zionist World Conspiracy" types.

Then I realised that those types probably don't read. Or think. C'est la vie.

~~~
nir
Conspiracies are simply a replacement for religion. Just as religious people
see God's will in any event, conspiracy theorists on Reddit see CIA/Mossad/etc
behind everything. By definition, you can't disprove them.

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btilly
Interesting trivia. One of the inspirations for Page Rank was undoubtably the
Science Citation Index. Which was ultimately inspired by a 1945 article called
_As We May Think_ by Vanevar Bush.

HTML is inspired by the idea of hypertext, which was inspired by the idea of a
memex machine, which was invented in a 1945 article called _As We May Think_
by Vanevar Bush. Yes, the same article.

In other words Google lives in the intersection of two ideas whose history
both trace back to the same essay. An essay written before most of us were
alive. With that in mind it is interesting to read
[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-
ma...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-
think/3881/) to see how it lead in both directions.

~~~
corporeal
Thanks for this. It's really interesting to find the source of ideas

~~~
btilly
You're welcome.

I learned this tidbit from an essay called _In Oldenberg's Long Shadow_. It
has disappeared from its original location, but
[http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20040204224231/http://www.a...](http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20040204224231/http://www.arl.org/arl/proceedings/138/guedon.html)
still has it.

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DTrejo
Please rename to "Unusual Things I Didn't Know About Google (also: the worst
VC decision ever)".

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

Edit: I appreciate that you are participating more on HN.

Edit2: To those who are downvoting: can I ask why?

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RockyMcNuts
I didn't downvote, but the value of HN is that it usually doesn't have this
type of self-promotional claptrap or borderline content farm BS.

Maybe users should be able to block certain domains/contributors.

