Most people here missed Thiel's point. He didn't say Google wasn't innovating. He said that Google has 50 billion in cash and has no clue on how to use it efficiently in order to innovate. And this is 100% true.
I actually think there's a force in the world, in which Google is a big part, that doesn't want to see new innovations take place unless they control it. I believe they are afraid of new innovations because the freedom and access created by innovation diverts the masses from being sucked into globalism. Investing in new innovation may also motivate others to invest in other innovation and the control of wealth distribution gets out of hand again. In other words new innovation is competition and competition is a sin to these people
vcf3 It could be that we live in a time when so many things are changing that picking one thing is hard. But I have spent a lot of time trying to get a picture of long-term trends and it leaves my head spinning. Is it clean tech? Biotech? Healthcare? Robotics? Nanotech? AI? Brain tech? Spaceflight? Digital education? Google has its hands in all of those, and they are all powerful trends. Or maybe it needs to commit heavily to one or two. Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you're saying.
+Frank Mann You're absolutely right. The rich can't believe how the got to where they're at and think anybody else is a threat to their volatile position. Keep the poor ,poor that keeps the rich rich. Very unfortunate position of greed does nothing for innovation or progress.
Frank Mann, Why would technological innovation stop globalization? I think it's the opposite. When people become poor they realize their finite resources are being redistributed directly or indirectly in various ways to people they could live without. Governments would also have a vested interest in keeping people poor and technologically retarded. If the world grows richer and richer they become increasingly worthless. Who would need their redistribution schemes?
Lucky we stayed invested in Google since 2012 huh? Anyway, Peter Thiel is also a Climate Change denier and avid Trump supporter. Interesting to know ya?
I think Peter's point was "Google is making more money than it is innovating", and Eric's point is "Well, Chrome is doing really well in the market", but he kinda concedes Peter's point
@@adamlee9347 ya thats true, but they were all 40 analysts that didn't understand the internet. If used tge internet you knew amazon was gonna be the online Walmart one day
@@BLUEGENE13 nah whats obvious now was counterintuitive back then. And even though Amazon was an e-commerce company powered by the internet, a lot of internet comoanies failed to gain profit and went brankrupt. So actually the skeptics' concerns were somewhat reasonable at that time
It sounds stupid, but i can see why he said it. I mean it's actually a very good example of vertical integration, they started from scratch and targeted a Market and totally dominated it after a few years.
@@anfechtung-143bgb4 Making the best web browser is cool and all, but it hardly counts as innovation. Chrome does what other web browsers do, but better. Thiel is talking about actual innovation in technology. Elon Musk has far less capital than Google, yet innovates far more. Neuralink and SpaceX have the potential to change the world. Google could have invested in things similar to these with far less risk. This is what annoys Thiel, Google could invest in innovation at little risk but they choose not to. OR they don't know how. Look at Amazon, Thiel called out early on that they were innovating. Now they've turned into much more than an online store.
@@MrJimShorts Not wanting to innovate in order to avoid wasting money just to rock the boat is an acceptable strategy. But then all the c-level executives at Google should just resign and be replaced with minimum wage interns, since any idiot can do that and cant possibly justify their salary. Its no different than CEO's who fire all their American employees, move operations overseas and hire a much cheaper labor force as replacement, and then award themselves a "productivity bonus" for their trouble, as if they did something ingenious. Its not something that can be remotely considered brilliant.
@@chrissanchez3884 you clearly have no idea how many innovations and companies Alphabet has. They're everywhere from the same thing Neuralink does to Artificial Intelligence to autonomous driving to Quantum Computing
Basically Peter is saying a few things here, Google; - has more money than it knows what to do with (now ~160B) - isn’t innovating fast enough. - is a monopoly which it would never admit. As companies do not amass that sort of cash without being a monopoly. - doesn’t pay much tax because it believes holding onto the money is better than giving it to the government or its shareholders. - Is holding onto money to purchase other innovative companies because it become risk adverse or reactive to threats.
Its not that their innovating fast enough, its that their not innovating at all. They throw money at random projects but dont know what to actually clamp down and pursue. Even if they do find something worth putting money into, they realize it ends up cucking their main revenue source so they dont go for it anyways. ChatGPT nowadays basically proven just how incompetent Google really was.
@@MrJimShorts watch the video... Amazon reinvest their profit, so they essentially hold zero cash. We still don't even know what the actual potential is
@@MrJimShorts yeah, guy has no idea how modern economics work...they mistake the stock price with actual profit. This is all a setup to keep the rich rich, they lose money for themselves and the businesses they exploit but doesnt matter long as the stock remains high. When that fails (if they cant exploit the numerous criminal yet technically legal means to remain artificially inflated) then they take out massive loans that they never really have to pay back. How this persists is beyond reason, one day the people will get financially awakened and these charlatans will get really scared....one day, certainly not today though.
@@firmman4505 Typical, didn't even read correctly what I said and are blindly condescending and critical. I said IF they were to get into some kind of trouble, IF their house of cards was exposed and crumbled like so many other major companies who get bailed out when the going gets rough. Stop trying to be a smartass, you come off looking like a moron. Not that the emojis help your cause any...what are you ten?
Education is not the problem. It's the fact that the companies don't want to use the time educating people, that people have to do it in their own free time at their own expense. That is the truth.
I don't think that they're laughing at him. Its just funny how he was so clever in making us rethink the narrative around Google. They have this image of being an amazing tech company, but when you think about it, they don't actually have that many innovative ideas. They usually just create their own version of existing products, or buy out other companies. Google Maps for example was bought. RU-vid was bought. Android was bought.
Reason behind being Mr.Musk and Mr.Bejos financial success is they reinvest into lot of new ideas. I think these 2 will become even more richer in long run. As some of their projects are about to come functional in near future
Well it is too early to tell but with Calico being recently announced as their newest venture (a company to develop true anti-aging medicine etc) perhaps that may turn out to be a real game changer.
@@Jordar4111 sorry I should've been more clear, "#1 browser" does not mean they are claiming to have been the first browser to have ever been invented merely that they are currently in first place in browser popularity. does that make things a bit more clear?
If you want examples of inspiring tech companies that push hard against govt regulation and make big bets toward real innovation - look to Tesla & SpaceX, and to Elon Musk as a CEO leading this charge.
SpaceX isn't going to get to the Moon - as Neil Tyson has said, only the government has the resources and the structure to take a risk like that without the promise of a close enough payoff. If government and corporations want to collaborate, fine.
peter you are strong to stand next to that black hole, and in this world. "if we live in a technological accelerated world and you have 0% interest in the background, you should reinvest your profit and make it many times over. unless its a governmental regulation holding you back" and that guy smiles cause he knows he's right, even tho it seems like he is operating under a different world view than peter.
Really good from Peter Thiel. Corporates need to be challenged. Yes great rewards for top people like Schmidt is OK, but that comes with responsibility. Sitting on cash piles that are not doing anything needs to be called out and Thiel is right to do so.
I think that the valley has the human capital to come up with a lot of neat stuff, but there's something missing to connect that human capital to the needs of the rest of the world. Maybe there's a missing link between the valley and all these various firms in the rest of the world that are doing things that are actually necessary. Like it seems like the only thing the valley is good for is to do shit over a cloud from a basement full of servers, but they're useless when it comes to real-world things. I think the valley needs an infusion of other sectors, like finance, transportation, agriculture - you name it - because there is something missing to connect all the capital of the valley with the capital of the rest of the world.
Not true. Google went big in Machine Learning/Tensofflow/TPUs in data centers. They innovated across their product line last few years. Its Apple that is not able to innovate any longer
Thiel's point is that Google is not doing enough. They should be spending almost all available cash flow (like Amazon) to maximize speed and breadth of innovation.
What’s the issue here? So what if Google’s not innovating much? Not everyone has to breach out to other fields that are riskier. Google is very stable and comfortable with their Google Ads, and I don’t see why they should sweat out more on other things that don’t give bigger value compared to just doing search engine things. At the heart of search engine is algorithm, I think focusing alone on that is fun and challenging already. You don’t need to do and have a lot, to be content.
Because innovation is what drives real economic growth. The reason that political divisions are begin to occur in the western world is that we are living in a period of relative stagnation. The pie is no longer growing the same way it used to. When that happens, the economy becomes more zero sum and the result is the rich get richer at the expense of everyone else. Real innovation gets the pie growing again. The big tech companies should be spearheading that innovation, after all, they have the capital and the infrastructure to do so - yet they do not do it.
Google doesn't need to Innovate. They are a value company listed in the stock exchange. When you force them to "innovate" and make risky bets they are accountable to a greater number of people. VCs and private equity are not liable to this type of scrutiny. That being said, Google did invest heavily in Juicero.
So do nothing,invest in nothing, just do stock buybacks for blackrock or FMR or whatever?you self rightous "shareholder democracy" people ruined everything,
the "lack of innovation" that has been bringing google maps, streetview, translate, search, android, youtube, ad words, chrome, gmail, drive, docs, analytics, ai research and a lot more mostly cost free, without advertising banners or requiring a log-in in many cases, to hundreds of millions of people around the world. google has proven to be one of the most innovative and influential companies ever, why pick and blame them, which are among the biggest successes in terms of innovation and not other profitable business who are likely much less so? the real point here should not be that google (or rather alphabet inc) is "the bad guy", as thiel so desperately tries to make it look like the whole interview long, but that innovation is difficult. and, maybe even more constructively, about how to solve the problems that a huge company with a history of innovation like google faces for continuing innovation. but thiel rather wants to _blame_ them because that is very easy and maybe because it is him who has actually become the lazy one.
Thiel wasnt "blaming" anyone he was giving his opinion on why a few tech companies have huge amounts of cash on hand and are not reinvesting profits. I reccomend everyone to read his book Zero to One.
All things you are mention are not innovations. email or google spreadsheeats isn’t something new. And Thiel doen’t call them bad guys and don’t blame them. He just told true. You are hiring thousands of brightest minds on the earth, best engineers... and they waste their talent on making email interface looking more fancy and ads algorithms earning more money.
So what is Facebook doing with it's 10 billion cash? You cannot simply invest money without a considering probability of a good return. Your investors simply won't let you do that. Again, it's not like Google doesn't innovate. If you watch IO conference every year, you would know. One big flaw in Theil's argument is Google is replying on a 1997 algorithm. Google have done so many revisions to their initial page rank algorithm. They have an entire team on working search engine optimization. So it's not really relying on an old algorithm.
lol, google does do a couple a stuff they are both kinda right but also kinda wrong, what do u do to invest 50 billlion thats just a lot maybe innovation just cant keep up
He sounded confident. That's enough to convince a lot of people unfortunately. But you're right in that it was in no material way a disproof of what Mr. Tiel said.
what bugs me abut Thiel is he's obsessed with the idea that no one has any ideas. but just like the tech companies he's criticizing, he himself never offers anything new
+darkpearl88 The difference is he's honest about it. If Google came out and said we can't invest in the future anymore because the government outlaws x, y and z there would be pressure to change laws. But it's more in Google's interest to keep things as they are and NOT invest rather than to be rabble rousing and risking to admit there is no real vision for the future.
Well he's a VC, constantly pouring money into the future with Thiel Fellowship and startups like Palantir. If he can't come up with ideas on his own he definitely helps people who can.
He want's to change ppl paradigm of thinking to bring more innovations. If you not admin you are not innovating just mostly globalising whats already discovered you will never start to change this state. And that's the whole point Mr Peter is telling all this to make people think more and go for real innovations, break throu not safety and running business as usual - especially in so big companies having so much capital that could bring a real change.
Out of all things Google had at that time, he mentioned browser?? I mean, yeah, it was and still is the most dominant browser available, but Android by far exceeded expectations.
Hmm Peter Thiel was quite disappointing in this interview. He's a venture capitalist. He should run a company at Google scale to say something like that. Once you're at the size of Google, the game is not as black and white as in small company anymore. What surprising is how he emotionally connect to Google as an individual...
Interesting way to put it, I do think Google plays it way too safe. At times though it seems to pay off considering how badly they managed early Nexus sales. When the google car, google glass, google fiber is all ready and proven in their little experiments I really hope they can grow the balls to run with it and sink the billions in cus I'm so sick of our crap ISP's/Television companies (talk about not innovating... take a look at them or anyone in telecomm).
to me google is losing big time. Its been years since a major tablet or watch update - and this is in the markets its in. Then they said that watch OS would be reliant on the manufacturer to update (compare that to android vs WIndows (and the biggest annoyance of users)) and now apple has said they would update iOS every year. Why go with google? If Apple does search they already have 1Billion users And now have reached 50% in the US (so they will have the most profitable users). Im leaving google when 14.1 inch ipad comes out. So much potential thrown away on no real strategy.
Because freedom of pirating. That's generally the case you'd use openware-based software because also people see in long-term it's better than being stuck with paying more for apple. Essentially a cheap over perfectionist mindset are google users compared to apple.
Peter was wrong. Amazon steals good ideas because they can afford it. Does it hurt feelings? Yes. Is it wrong? No. Jeff takes ideas and makes them better. Google is the real innovator. They make money from other people doing work. Amazon makes money from doing the work. Amazon takes on all the risk. Both are amazing organizations.
Thiel utterly laid waste to Schmidt. When Schmidt admits "limitations other than cash", i.e., recruiting, etc., that is the point where the morally right thing for the company to do is instead of making 1% on their cash hoard, declare a dividend, give the cash back to the owners of the company, so they can invest it in places Google, for valid reasons, cannot invest it (such as Google's competitors). The fiduciary purpose of a publicly traded company is to increase shareholder wealth. Thiel is pointing out a huge failure of American business. Why are dividends a third rail for tech companies? It is even worse today. Google (now Alphabet) has a market cap of $1.5T dollars. Apple and Microsoft pay dividends. Amazon ($2.2T), Alphabet ($1.5T), and Facebook ($860B) have never paid dividends. These are no longer small, hypergrowth startups. Their market cap has continued to grow, but this is due to organic growth in their core markets, as well as the sheer size of the companies making them "safe bets". Safe bet investments are the antithesis of "growth stocks" and "high tech stocks" which historically were seen as being higher risk, with higher reward (high beta). Alphabet has a beta of less than 1, on par with cash cows Adobe and Cisco. Amazon's and Apple's betas are on par with IBM's. Low risk stocks, with massive cash flow, hoarding cash when interest rates are near zero, not declaring a dividend. I do not know if this has ever happened before.
Google are involved in research behind the scenes that is not so apparent. They have employed some of the greatest artificial intelligence scientists there are.
