Alphabet (Google) Product Teardown

• The market value of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, passed the $600 billion dollar mark in April of 2017.
• As of May 2017, Forbes valued Google at $101.8 billion, the second-most valuable brand worldwide
• Alphabet real-time price is +10.48% over the year-to-date
• Google’s stock is a reasonably valued, good buy: Google’s stock has increased 41% over the last year and 208% over the last five years

In this training, you will

• “A push into cloud and hardware: Alphabet’s pushing for growth in areas beyond advertising, with R&D, acquisitions, and investments focused on sectors with a proven capacity to become revenue and profit centers, such as premium mobile and smart home hardware, and especially cloud & enterprise services.”
• “Acquisitions have picked up again: The company made 9 acquisitions in Q3’16, the most since Q3’14, which could signal a resurgence in its M&A appetite given its stated intention to bulk up further in mobile hardware (with the Pixel phone and smart home hub), enterprise cloud offerings, transportation/logistics, VR, and other areas.”

• Google acquired YouTube in 2006
• By 2016, this deal was “widely considered to be one of the best consumer tech acquisitions ever.”
  • “YouTube was one of the world’s fastest-growing websites, and its executives had a clear understanding of what users wanted out of a video site.”
  • “YouTube has evolved into the world’s biggest video search engine, with a sprawling database of clips made navigable by Google’s smart algorithms. Google can sell display and video ads against all these clips, to the tune of more than $5.2 billion in estimated revenue this year, according to eMarketer.”
  • “Splitting ad revenue with video creators spurred the creation of higher-quality content. That content has been extremely popular among kids and young adults, whose clicks are the precious manna keeping thousands of media/tech/advertising professionals employed. And YouTube has aggressively reinvested its money into the formats of the future, such aslivestreaming and virtual reality.” (Oct 2016)

By 2015, Android had become the most popular mobile operating system in the entire world:”

• “In 2005, Google acquired Android Inc. for around 50 million dollars and the Google Mobile Division was born. The world watched this event with skepticism and curiosity that we can now define as almost historic…
• Two years later, Google came up with an incredible strategic move where they offered 10 million USD to developers who would make the best Android apps from the first public version of the Android SDK. At this point, Google’s intentions became a lot clearer: they didn’t just want to build another iPhone, but a device with a flexible and adaptable system different to the Apple OS.” (July 2015)

• Makani: “Makani energy kites produce electricity by harnessing energy efficiently from the wind.”
• Google acquired Makani in 2013 for an undisclosed amount: It became “part of Google X, Google’s secret lab where it develops “moonshot” projects like the Google Glass computerized headgear and self-driving cars.” (May 2013)

• Google acquired DeepMind in 2014: “Google’s hiring of DeepMind will help it compete against other major tech companies as they all try to gain business advantages by focusing on deep learning… This is the latest move by Google to fill out its roster of artificial intelligence experts.” (Jan 2014)
• DeepMind is a move beyond Google’s core product: “…the next big war in tech is for true Artificial Intelligence that will make Google’s current core product, “search,” look like a primitive offering… developments are taking place in such a way that threatens to peel off users from Google’s core search product, or create new ways of doing things that bypass Google.” (Jan 2014)
• “DeepMind, another 2014 purchase valued somewhere between $500M and $600M, has cemented Google’s reputation in AI research with its high-profile AlphaGo and WaveNet projects and its tech has already been applied in areas from Google’s data centers to its translation tools.”

• Google buys Titan Aerospace: “Titan will be able to collect photos from around the planet from high up, which could help with Google Earth and Google Maps. It will also contribute to Google’s Project Loon, which is sending balloons into the atmosphere which then beams Internet to parts of the world that are not yet connected. It’s also likely to work with Makani, another company Google bought, that gets wind power high in the sky, and delivers the energy back to earth through a long cable.”
• Previously, Facebook had been in talks about acquiring Titan for $60 million. (March 2014)

• As of 2016, Google had acquired seven unique robotics companies: “Schaft, Industrial Perception, Meka Robotics, Redwood Robotics, Bot & Dolly, Holomni, and most notably Boston Dynamics.”
• Google acquired Boston Dynamics in 2013
  • The New York times suggested that this acquisition is “the clearest indication yet that Google is intent on building a new class of autonomous systems that might do anything from warehouse work to package delivery and even elder care.”

• Methods of investment:
  • “A few [investments] are made directly by Google subsidiaries or divisions. (DeepMind, for example, has invested directly in telemedicine startup Babylon.) But the majority are made by Alphabet’s two investment arms: the earlier-stage focused GV (formerly Google Ventures) and expansion-stage-oriented Google Capital.”
  • “…the company’s most prominent strategic investments include several mega-deals to companies in “frontier” areas such as augmented reality, space transportation, and exploration. It has led a $542M round to stealthy augmented reality outfit Magic Leap in October 2014, as well as SpaceX’s $1B Series D in January 2015. Sources indicated that Google put up nearly $900M of the latter deal, for a sizable 7.5% stake in the company.”
  • “…Google’s hefty SpaceX investment aligns with broader Alphabet moonshots to improve geospatial data (Terra Bella, formerly Skybox Imaging) and drive global internet connectivity (Access and Energy, Project Loon, etc.).”
• How Alphabet invests in startups: “Alphabet has many investment vehicles that help it keep a watch on tech built beyond the Googleplex, including GV, CapitalG, Gradient Ventures, and strategic investments made out of its corporate arm and individual business units.” (Aug 2017)
• Google Ventures is the venture capital arm of Alphabet, Inc.
  • The GV portfolio includes companies in the consumer, life science and health, data and AI, enterprise, and robotics sectors.
• In 2010, Google invested in two wind farms, its first investment in utility-scale renewable energy generation.
• Recently, Google unveiled significant investments in France: The search group plans to open a new artificial intelligence center in France within weeks… The company also said that it would open four Google Hubs across the country, which will focus on free training in online skills and digital literacy.” (Jan 2018)
• Google also recently invested in a Chinese startup, Chushou: “an online e-sports platform where users can live stream their mobile phone games. The service has roughly 8 million streamers and 250,000 live streams a day, said the companies in a statement. Google will help the Chinese firm expand its services to target more overseas viewers, it said.” (Jan 2018)

• Google terms of service
  • Content: “When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.”
• Google privacy policy
  • Google collects “information you give us,” “Information we get from your use of our services,” “log information,” “location information,” “unique application numbers,” “local storage,” “cookies and similar technology.”
  • This video by Google explains how the company uses cookies
• Most personal data given to Google by users is contact information, followed by address book with private contacts. (March 2017)
• Data Management Research at Google: “Research at Google is deeply engaged in Data Management research across a variety of topics with deep connections to Google products. We are building intelligent systems to discover, annotate, and explore structured data from the Web, and to surface them creatively through Google products, such as Search (e.g., structured snippets), Docs, and many others.”
• Google has seen an increase in the number of user data requests from U.S. federal agencies and courts. (H1 2017)

• Phones
  • In 2010, Google introduced the Nexus One
  • A wide array of Android phones is available
  • The newest iteration is the Google Pixel 2
    • Features now include things like Augmented Reality Stickers, Google Lens, updated Assistant, and new Android software (December 2017)
• Google Glass
  • After a noisy introduction in 2012, Google took away the Glass in 2015
  • Google Glass 2.0 was launched in July 2017 and in move that strategically “pivot[ed] away from the consumer market.”
• Android Wear
• Google Chromebook was launched in 2011 and announced in the Google Blog.
• Google Daydream View are VR glasses compatible with many Android phones

• Google fiber is a fiber optic internet service provider available in select cities
• Google wifi: “Google Wifi replaces your router and works with your modem and ISP, so you can stream, download and share without missing a beat.”
• The Nest Learning Thermostat is now in its third generation and comes in multiple varieties
• Google Chromecast
  • Launched in 2013 for $35: “the Chromecast is the first expansion of the Chrome operating system out of traditional forms of computing. Up until now, Chrome OS was a desktop operating system, designed for use on a laptop or monitor. Google retooled it for the living room and tapped mobile operating systems to provide the content.”
• Google Home is a voice-activated controller for connected smart devices
  • Multiple versions are now available, including the Google Home mini and the Google Home Max
• Google Assistant, a virtual personal assistant, is the tool to control these devices
  • Google launched the voice assistant in 2016: “Google first unveiled Assistant at Google I/O in May 2016, launched it on the Google Pixel and Pixel XL phones, brought it to Google Home and then Android Wear 2.0, before it started it rolling it out to other phones running Android.” (Jan 2018)
  • Assistant now has “more features—like Voice Match,  Broadcast and Hands-Free Calling—the Google Assistant has become even more helpful. Your Assistant now gives you the power to voice control more than 1,500 compatible smart home devices from over 225 brands.” (Jan 2018)
  • Google VDA usage by frequency
  • Google VDA ownership by age
  • VDA usage by frequency and assistant

• Self-driving technology project:
  • 2010: “Google’s cars drive themselves in traffic.”
  • “Google has been uncommonly secretive about its self-driving-car program. Though it began in 2009, the company first announced the project in a blog post a year later.”
  • The project was named Waymo in 2016. Here Google’s history of the project.
• In 2014, Google announced it was working on a smart contact lens project.
  • The lens is being developed specifically to help track blood glucose levels for diabetics.
• Project Loon, “internet-beaming balloons,” began to be tested in 2016.

• 40% of the 2016 Fortune 500 companies had Google+ pages.
• Google+ received 51.48 million monthly visitors as of spring 2017. Data shows consistent increase in visitors since autumn 2013.
• 16% of female and 23% of male internet users in the US used Google+ in their spare time.
• “There are about 2.2 billion G+ profiles total.”
• “Of these, about 9% have any publicly-posted content.”
• “Members of 12 percent of households with an annual income of 125,000 U.S. dollars stated that they spent less than one hour on Google+ in an average week in 2017.” https://www.statista.com/statistics/243373/members-of-affluent-us-households-reading-tweets-on-twitter-in-an-average-week/
• https://www.statisticbrain.com/google-plus-demographics-statistics/
• Also: See Youtube. Since 2013, Youtube comments have been powered by Google+, in 2015 they rescinded this policy.

Gmail is Google’s email server.

• In February 2016, the number of active Gmail users worldwide grew to 1 billion

• “Peter Warman, CEO of Newzoo, says YouTube still dominates the video market worldwide by a margin of at least 2:1. He says half of all gamers in the U.S. watch gaming videos regularly on YouTube, compared with just 21% who watch on Twitch. YouTube also owns the global market. Warman cites as an example France, where 49% of gamers watch YouTube regularly, compared with just 9% who visit Twitch. And those numbers hold true in Brazil, where YouTube has a 57% to 24% edge, as well as the United Kingdom, which gives YouTube a 47% to 21% lead.
• YouTube is also courting an older, more affluent viewer, according to the research firms. The average age of viewers watching gaming content on YouTube is 28, compared with 21 on Twitch. Twenty-eight percent of these YouTube viewers are considered middle income and 35% are considered high income. The majority of Twitch users make less than $50,000 a year, according to Quantcast.”
• Twitch Ups Its Game to Compete with YouTube Gaming

• Google Play Movies and TV streams video online.

• Google Play Music is an on-demand subscription music service.
• Google Play store will soon start including audiobooks
  • Google Blog: Introducing audiobooks

• “My long-term bet is still on Google creating a parallel music industry around YouTube, one that is entirely opted out of the traditional music industry’s rights frameworks.” https://musicindustryblog.wordpress.com/tag/youtube-red/
• “Google has tried to create music-centric products to win over fans and appease the record industry, but it’s failed to capture the same number of users as Apple or Spotify. Instead, YouTube has released a number of products, including Google Play Music, YouTube Music Key, and then, after Music Key’s slow growth, the video-focused YouTube Red. Meanwhile, Spotify has soared to 140 million monthly users, with 50 million of them paid, while Apple Music has over 30 million subscribers. Google has never released user numbers for its music streaming service, and YouTube Red, which had just 1.5 million subscribers a year ago largely due to its limited global rollout, has irked music industry executives for its heavy focus on original video content, Bloomberg reports.”  https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/7/16749322/youtube-red-google-play-music-combine-streaming-service-remix-launch-date (Really great comments in here regarding lack of Youtube Red Availability internationally)
• “From publicly available data, IFPI estimates that Spotify paid record companies US$20 per user in 2015,the last year of available data. By contrast, it is estimated that YouTube returned less than US$1 for each music user”
• “User upload video streaming services, benefiting from the misapplication of ‘safe harbours’, comprise the world’s largest on-demand music audience,conservatively estimated at more than 900 million users”
  • http://www.ifpi.org/downloads/GMR2017.pdf

• Google Play Games is Google’s gaming app, launched in 2013.
  • What Google Play Games does: “act[s] like a dashboard for all of your gaming needs on your Android device. Think of it like the Xbox or PS3 dashboard or even the Steam dashboard. It doesn’t do anything cool on its own, but gives you access to the things that do…  Using this app you can view all of your games. If those games have Google Play Games support, you can also view things like achievements. It’ll show you all the games you’ve played, the ones you’ve played recently, and the ones you have currently installed. You can also browse featured and popular titles as well as titles that support official Google Play Games multiplayer. You can view your friends on Google+ who also use Google Play Games.” (Aug 2013)
• Games got mini-games and a redesign in 2017: “it’s a lighter interface, with less information displayed until you start tapping some buttons, and it has also gotten rid of the “discover new games” area of the previous Play Games iterations.” (Nov 2017)
• Games are also available via YouTube Gaming.

• Google Search is a web search platform that is Google’s core product.
• In 2017, Google had 64% of the paid mobile search click share (54% for phones, 10% for tablets)
• Google Scholar is a search engine for academic texts.

• Google Cloud Natural Language Platform: “Google Cloud Natural Language reveals the structure and meaning of text by offering powerful machine learning models in an easy to use REST API.”
  • In 2016, Google announced its public beta launch of its Cloud Natural Language API, a new service that gives developers access to Google-powered sentiment analysis, entity recognition, and syntax analysis” (Jul 2016)
  • Google NLP documentation: “Google Cloud Natural Language API provides natural language understanding technologies to developers, including sentiment analysis, entity analysis, entity sentiment analysis, content classification, and syntax analysis. This API is part of the larger Cloud Machine Learning API family.”
• Google boosts Cloud Natural Language API with automatic content classification and deeper sentiment analysis: “Google is unveiling two new Cloud Natural Language features designed to help third-party developers organize content and understand their customers’ feelings toward a particular “entity,” such as company, product, or place.”

• Google is moving towards an “AI-first” strategy: “The company is leveraging its AI/machine learning expertise, including those absorbed through its acquisition of DeepMind, to differentiate its products in the sectors above as well as search and advertising, overall consumer web services, and other Alphabet units. Google’s new high-end mobile and smart home devices serve as exclusive outlets for some of these services.”
• Google is the most active acquirer of AI
• New developments:
  • In January 2018, Google introduced Cloud AutoML: “…to make AI accessible to every business, we’re introducing Cloud AutoML. Cloud AutoML helps businesses with limited ML expertise start building their own high-quality custom models by using advanced techniques like learning2learn and transfer learning from Google.”
• TensorFlow is Google’s open source library for Machine Intelligence
  • TensorFlow Lite bring AI to mobile (Nov 2017)