No other tech firm in history has managed to infiltrate and influence
daily life to the same insane extent as
Search giant Google.
The Californian company's impact on how
we work, play, and settle drunken
arguments are so well documented it more or less goes without saying.
What's perhaps less well understood is just how vast the company has grown since deciding it wasn't satisfied
simply being everybody's omniscient
online know-it-all.
So today we're on the search for just
what this modern-day BMW does and
asking the question how big is google?
Ironically for a firm whose mo is delivering definitive answers at
lightning speed google's day-to-day
operations are somewhat shrouded in
mystery.
Still to get a rough sense of the scale
of its core search business at least
figures from just over a year ago
suggest Google handles some
3.8 million online searches every single
minute of every single day
that works out in case you were
wondering at 228 million searches per
hour 5.6 billion searches a day or
around 2 trillion searches every year
not that all of these are meaningful or
worthwhile queries not that we're judging
still, it's amusing to note that around
12 of searches in the us
are some variation on the end-user
googling the word google
the colossal quantity of traffic google
overseas obviously translates into
revenue
and plenty of it which is why last year
google became only the third tech firm
in history to report a market cap of
more than one trillion us dollars
for a sense of just how much money
Google earns it's worth noting that in
the middle of last year
with the Covid 19 pandemic running
roughshod across the fragile world
economy the company reported quarterly
revenues of 46.2 billion dollars a 14%
increase year on year but wait a minute
you'd be forgiven for thinking
Google is free to use right well yes but
it does run ads
one of google's most financially
significant acquisitions the company
said to buy companies at the breakneck
the pace of around one a week
was advertising management company
Doubleclick which paid about 3.1
billion dollars for back in March 2008.
Doubleclick was founded in 1996 two
years before google and
was an early darling of the
so-called.com era indeed it proved to be
a canny purchase
though ultimately rebranded as google
ads along with the 2009 acquisition AdMob
DoubleClick tech is now believed to
earn google well north of 100 billion
dollars every year
at this point, we need to learn about the
the alphabet as part of a major root and
branch restructuring the company
undertook in 2015
Google executives created alphabet as a
giant multinational conglomerate an
umbrella company if you will
of which the google search business is a
mere subsidiary this was partly to quell
unease among stockholders who were
cocking an eyebrow at how large and
ungainly google's extracurricular
businesses were getting
more on those in a moment but the
creation of alphabet was also intended
to rationalize the corporate lines of
reporting
such that queries around search so to
speak could be directed to a new google
CEO
and not clutter up the desks of
visionary founders larry page and Sergey
brin
so what else has Google been up to it
might be easier asking what they haven't
been up to
in November 2005 google forked out the
seemingly bonkers sum
of 1.65 billion dollars for youtube a
niche video sharing site put together by
a trio of ex-PayPal employees who
thought users would use it to share
wedding videos
that hustle is going pretty well since
you ask netting google comfortably north
of 15 billion
a year and still growing furiously
despite or maybe because of the pandemic
Google snapped up another bargain in
2005 thanks to its 50 million dollar
purchase of android
the commercial picture here isn't as
straightforward as android's open source
nature might lead you to believe
still, estimates suggest some 85 percent
of the global smartphone market runs on
android which gives google and parent
company alphabet a fair bit of clout
to understand how that clout actually
works it's worth remembering the
oft-repeated maxim
that data is the oil of the 21st century
google's ability to make money hinges on
its data collection operation
in the most straightforward case if you
googled curly toed slippers
Google knows you're in the market for
novelty footwear and can make money
selling that knowledge onto
manufacturers and vendors who specialize
in pointy tote slippers
much of google and alphabet's growth
involves harvesting user data in more
subtle ways than that
for instance, Gmail the company's wildly
popular free email service
currently has some 1.5 billion users if
much of google and alphabet's growth
involves harvesting user data in more
subtle ways than that
for instance, Gmail the company's wildly
popular free email service
currently has some 1.5 billion users if
google chat google podcasts blogger and
of course youtube
every time you use one of these services
alphabet learns a little bit more about
you and can use that info to sell ads
this also applies to the more corporate
side of google's work
for instance, there are google docs google
sheets and google slides
handy online alternatives to Microsoft
office for sure but it's worth restating
the fact that nothing on the internet is
ever truly free
oh and don't forget the note-taking app
google keep or interactive online
whiteboard service google jam board
in 2020 google acquired a company called
looker which seeks to help businesses
extract and analyze data at scale
crucially using natural language instead
of arcane coding mumbo jumbo
thus alphabet's winning combo of
cutting-edge analytics and its vast
a trove of everybody's data
makes the 2.6 billion purchase of looker
look like a very smart investment indeed
one very lucrative arm of
google's empire is google play
it's in-house app store last year it
enjoyed revenues of a reported 38.6
billion dollars of which some 30
is creamed off by alphabet in fees
another perhaps easier to overlook the side
of google, business is chrome the
company's popular web browser
it's estimated that almost 65 percent of
the global browser market is occupied by
chrome
google chrome was downloaded 5 billion
times in 2019 alone
not bad when you consider it didn't even
exist until 2008.
there are Chromebook laptops that shipped
over 9 million units in the third
quarter of 2020
and don't forget Chromecast the in-home
big screen broadcast dongle used by tens
of millions around the world
alphabet isn't shy about infiltrating
your house it seems
in 2014 the group paid a whopping 3.2
billion dollars for smart home company
the nest was founded in 2010 by two
apple alumni whose initial modest aim
was turning the humble thermostat in
your hallway into a sensor-driven wi-fi
enabled node on the internet of things
since this acquisition the sprawling
google nest division of the company has
expanded to offer smart alarm systems
security cameras home assistant devices
and even wireless routers
let's not forget the alphabet's vast stake
in the online mapping business
there are google maps google
earth and google street view
charges are your house and all your
previous homes are on there
not everybody knows that google maps
rival ways are also owned by google
purchased 2013 from an Israeli startup
for a cool 966 million dollars
they're also building cars by the way
way mo the firm's self-driving car
subsidiary
is currently offering an autonomous
rideshare service in phoenix Arizona and
looks set to be rolled out further just
as soon as it's deemed safe by
regulators
alphabet even has its tentacles in the
healthcare business with two noteworthy
sub-brands operating in the well-being
sphere
one verily aims to use big data to
influence and assist clinical research
and until recently was developing a
smart contact lens designed to monitor
the whereas glucose levels
another alphabet healthcare brand is
calico which was launched in 2013 and
seeks to research
understand and ultimately combat the
the very aging process itself
to cure death as one observer puts it if
you think that sounds far-fetched wait
until you hear about
loom the alphabet subsidiary dedicated
to providing wi-fi to hard-to-reach
areas of South America and Africa using
hot air balloons
or what about wing an alphabet owned
drone delivery service that's already
proven itself operationally on three
continents
that's before we get into google's 2014
acquisition of UK ai startup deep mind
which offers the firm a commanding lead
in the development of working artificial
intelligence systems
did we mention google's financing arm
capital g currently has some three
billion dollars under management and is
a key investor in big-name brands like
Lyft
Airbnb and Duolingo separate to capital
g
alphabets VG is a standalone venture
a capital fund with some
five billion dollars under its
management with a particular interest in
the life
sciences and so-called frontier
technologies and then there's cloud
computing
while it lags behind amazon web services
and Microsoft azure
alphabet's cloud business still nets the
firm around 20 billion dollars in
revenue a year
not bad so what does the future hold for
this sprawling giant
there's every chance that owing to its
mammoth size the next few years will see
alphabet ever more in the firing line of
regulators like the federal trade
commission or FTC
senior democrat politician Elizabeth
warren has expressed concern about
potential monopoly practices
like the fact alphabet owns both google
maps and Waze
consumers are also growing increasingly
wary of big data's intrusion into all of
our lives
just this month when alphabet reported
the successful acquisition of health
tracker Fitbit
for 2.1 billion dollars there was an
the online outcry about exactly what google
might do with all that intensely
personal workout data
some of it going back years can alphabet
hope to counter these legitimate
objections
and see off a regulatory breakup maybe
but only by borrowing a leaf out of
fit bits book and taking some pretty
bold steps
what do you think has google grown too
big for its boots is it fine for tech
giants to harvest our data in exchange
for providing practical tools we use
every day.