A review of the Alphabet company

This is a review of Alphabet, looking into some non quantitative aspects of the company. Here I explain the purpose of this post.

Revenue and Operating Income

I have tried to find more details by the segments and services offered by the company, but that information is not available.

Some notes:

  • There is not a formal division of Google and their main services, so I have created my own vision of the division.
  • I have not included all the services, so you probably will miss something.
  • The location on the “evolution” axis is my personal view, so it’s opened to interpretation and I’m sure any other person can have a different opinion on it.
  • Point #1: Google Services continues being the main source of revenue. This has been happening so many years and there is still no other business that is growing at large scale. It’s true that inside Google some areas have grown a lot (for instance YouTube).
  • Point #2: Could services is growing up and as expected it’s still in a moment where there are no profits. There are some issues related to this.
  • Point #3: There is a set of subsidiaries and projects that are classified as “other bets”. There is no specific data related to their contribution. I have added a point to “https://killedbygoogle.com/” that is a place where some services and products discarded by Alphabet are listed.

Some of the services or companies discarded by Alphabet that pay attention to me:

  • Boston Dynamics was sold, right the company that builds those awesome robots.
  • Google play music.
  • Google +: they tried for some years to attract as a social network and they discarded it.
  • Google Reader: I used it a lot, and they could know what we all were reading, but for whatever reason, it was discarded.

Specific maps and charts by segment

Since here, I add some specific pictures by business units. To take into account:

  1. Not all products/services are present.
  2. Some are repeated on the maps.
  3. I’m biased on the position of each Service as I use them in a particular way.
  4. I had have so many doubts on the organization of the services. Any constructive feedback is welcome.
  5. This analysis enabled me to understand a lot of things of the company and how each service is linked with others. I have not represented all on the maps, but it was a great exercise to go through the services one by one.
  6. I used this page to review all of them: https://about.google/intl/ALL_us/products/

Alphabet Subsidiaries

Google Pillars

Alphabet advertisement Services

Google media services

Google workplace services

Google Educational Services

Alphabet Mobile Services

Probably “mobile” is not the right name for it, what would you use?

Alphabet Health Services

I excluded Calico and Verily (2 subsidiaries) on purpose, but they could fit here.

Google Connected Home Services

Alphabet Gaming Services

Alphabet Auto Services

The main auto manufacturers include Android Auto by default, so the mobile can be connected for using: maps, assistant, entertainment…

Alphabet Development Services

Google Cartography Services

Doctrine

I have found some interesting notes in the founders letter:

“Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.”

“Smaller bets in areas that might seem very speculative or even strange when compared to our current businesses

We are excited about…

  • Getting more ambitious things done.
  • Taking the long-term view.
  • Empowering great entrepreneurs and companies to flourish.
  • Investing at the scale of the opportunities and resources we see.
  • Improving the transparency and oversight of what we’re doing.
  • Making Google even better through greater focus.
  • And hopefully… as a result of all this, improving the lives of as many people as we can.”

This reflects too much the company it is. In addition to it, the fact that they do not offer so much data related to their services in the investors relationships section makes me think that they are very cautious when providing information.

Gameplays

These are the gameplays I identify on Alphabet. The main ones are related to Google.

At least five key people:

  • Larry Page (Alphabet CEO)
  • Sergey Brin (Alphabet President)
  • Sundar Pichai (Google CEO)
  • Ruth Porat (CFO)
  • Arthur Levinson (Calico CEO)
  • Andy Conrad (Verily CEO)
  • Tony Fadell (Nest CEO)
  • Bill Maris (GV CEO)
  • David Lawee (Google Capital Founder and General Partner)
  • John Krafcik (Waymo CEO)

At least five 5 competitors

  • Facebook, Amazon, Verizon (advertisement)
  • Amazon, Microsoft, Alibaba (cloud)
  • Apple, Samsung, Xaomi (Phones)
  • Amazon, Microsoft, small players (Connected home)

This is all by the moment. I hope you like it. If you have any question or constructive feedback, please let me know.

 

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