

Google Spending Millions to Find the Next Google - ekm
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/20/technology/google-spending-millions-to-find-the-next-google.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

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btcoal
Google can do this because they have too much cash on their balance sheet and
the market demands a return on that cash. They need novel areas to invest for
them to grow. But there is an alternative. I would prefer to see Google return
cash to shareholders via a stock buyback and focus on their core: organizing
the world's information.

This is not because I hold GOOG stock, just because I believe in that mission,
think they still have a long way to go, and don't yet have the resources to
tackle that problem myself.

I think as a smaller company revenue-wise and, ideally, as a private one they
could have more long-term focus.

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pgroves
_Google says the algorithms have taught it valuable lessons...(start-ups
located far from the venture capitalist’s office are more likely to be
successful, probably because the firm has to go out of its way to finance the
start-up.)_

Disagree.

Try this: Google's analysis of the venture capital industry shows that
companies do better when it's difficult for their investors to meddle in their
business on a day to day basis.

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duopixel
Taking a look at Google's data set would sure settle a lot of arguments:

1\. Does age matter?

2\. How important it is to be in Silicon Valley?

3\. Are biz devs really important?

4\. Are cofounders really important?

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wslh
The next Google is an outlier, you can't infer them from rules that give you
few winners.

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_sh
I wonder about this. Was Google itself an outlier? I don't think so. Indeed
I'd say you probably could have discovered Google using similar metrics the
article claims they are using, such as scholarly trends (but possibly not
founder history).

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wslh
Google was not an outlier, they were from Stanford, etc, etc. But it doesn't
imply anything about the possibility to catch outliers, they can't catch them
with those rules.

Even for non outliers, how can you catch Microsoft in front of casual
opportunities (DOS) that gives them an amazing opportunity. Chance and Rules
collides.

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throwaway73120
Google Ventures, like 500 Startups, is one of those funds that you have to be
invited to pitch for?

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jon_dahl
I don't think you have to be invited. Though it's probably hard to get a
meeting, just like it is with any VC.

Google Ventures is fairly similar to traditional venture capital, but with
more support provided to portfolio companies. Andreessen-Horowitz is another
VC that follows this model. Besides providing traditional VC help (money,
intros, executive recruiting, advice), GV and A16Z have operating folks on
staff that can help portfolio companies with things like HR, Bizdev,
engineering recruiting, UX, etc.

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jordank
It's mostly a journalistic device, but the notion of the next ______ (Google,
Scorcese, insert popular thing) is flawed. There won't be a next ______, and
that is okay.

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nolite
spend millions to save billions.. sounds about right

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VladRussian
the problem isn't finding "next" Google per.se. The main problem for a
corporation at the life stage Google is at is to not allow the "old" (very
successful, thus having a lot of clout, inertia and generally looking back
instead of forward) Google to kill the "next" one when it is brought in.

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sliverstorm
Not surprising that Google would be on the hunt for the next hit among
startups. We've seen them do it within their own products, ala GMail, Google
Maps, Google Voice, etc. Tech companies don't tend to stick around unless they
move with the times, and of all companies I'd bet Google knows it.

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maeon3
The next Google is "IBM's Watson" patched in through your smart phone so
someone can punch in a natural language question and get back a reasonable
natural language response from a simulated person with IQ of 5000.

If you can build even a primitive version of this deployed well, it would be
the Google-killer. Have it answer everything from 'how do you make a for loop
in php' to 'what cinemas near 32807 are playing Cars 2'? I don't want pages of
links, I want concise understandable objective correct answers.

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Joakal
Did you mean Wolfram Alpha?

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kloncks
PowerSet.

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orijing
Which got bought by Bing...

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redorb
At Google's revenue aren't losses kinda a good thing? (tax right off) I mean
as good as losses can be. Does this give them an advantage against other VC's?
and if so any idea on how much?

