McDonald's saw (see?) themselves as a real estate company.
The problem with this article, the drivel, is projecting nonsensical narratives onto these entities.
So while Google is certainly not a customer facing data services company, I still have no idea how they see themselves. Which would be useful information.
A better (actionable) external narrative is Scott Galloway's The Four. I have no idea if Galloway's analysis is closer to the mark. But at least it's self-consistent. [http://www.thefourbook.com]
What they are is what they are making most of their money at. Everything else is a hobby or supporting that business. Apple is selling iphones, google and facebook selling ads, amazon a retailer and a cloud provider. Microsoft selling software licences to businesses and cloud provider.
One thing that should be worth looking at given where we are in the economic cycle is how procyclical these businesses are. They didn't suffer much in the 2008 crisis as they were in full expension mode, but now these businesses are starting to be mature. Ads and retail are certainly very procyclical. $1000 smartphone too I presume. Cloud should be more stable, depending on how much of their income is VC funded loss making startups. Business license should be fairly stable.
The problem with this article, the drivel, is projecting nonsensical narratives onto these entities.
So while Google is certainly not a customer facing data services company, I still have no idea how they see themselves. Which would be useful information.
A better (actionable) external narrative is Scott Galloway's The Four. I have no idea if Galloway's analysis is closer to the mark. But at least it's self-consistent. [http://www.thefourbook.com]