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The answer may be trending towards Facebook. The head of the Advanced Technologies and Projects group at Google, Regina Dugan (ex Director of DARPA, by the way) just quit Google to join Facebook to lead a team called Building 8 in what sounds like a similar role. Could this in part be motivated by a desire to escape chaotic management, dissent and departures in Other Bets?
That's a hard question, and it comes down to one word: focus. Facebook seems to have it right now, especially with the vision Zuck laid out. Google has some good ideas but is all over the place on execution. I'm not sure senior leadership actually has control there. (Reminds me a lot of Apple after Jobs' departure and turning loose ATG on all kinds of initiatives. First thing Jobs did upon his return was kill almost everything.)
Facebook has clearly won the social media battle, Google+ has dropped off most radars. It'll be interesting to see what Google has at io about a month from now.
Don, with regards to Google's focus: not every company needs to be focused. For example GE for many years have won in multiple fields.
Now what's Google/Alphabet is trying to achieve - building a company aimed at multiple, long term, high risk, big bets is definitely hard. And it's also hard to retain talent for such long periods - senior managers are rewarded with stock, so waiting a decade for a risky bet doesn't fit everyone, so it's natural some will quit and some might aim lower/faster which will create tension, more than a regular company. So the goal is definitely hard(and surely risky).
And maybe we shouldn't compare them to a regular company, especially not on such a short period - but slowly wait till their projects are finish ?
GE is far from unfocused. If you look at their divisions they are each best-in-class, or they get one shot to fix it, and if not they get sold.
It does take a different type of management to effectively deal with a portfolio of divisions. The point about incentives/compensation is well taken. There's a good post on LinkedIn today about how we should abolish this quarterly reporting nonsense, that it causes the wrong decisions for long-term growth.
Facebook is going to (maybe already has) won the social media war. Perhaps comparing Facebook and Google is no longer valid, since Google is headed somewhere else.
I think the companies are battling over the same prize, but in different ways. The market is targeted advertising and the way to win is 1. Time spent on the platform and 2. Better targeting. Everything at both companies revolves around those two things.
I believe Facebook is winning in targeting, although Google is catching up. Google should have an advantage as it has more data - search history, gmail, maps, android - but Google's data is far more fragmented and needs to be stitched together and requires Google to infer a lot about you. Facebook has your Facebook account, which contains and enormous amount of data that can be used for targeting and it's all in one place, no inference requires. However Google is improving it's targeting ability so I think they should be able to catch up.
As far as time spent on platform, again it would seem that Google would have and advantage when I believe Facebook is winning. Google would dominate if you count anything you do on Android, but that's not time that a user is being presented with advertising. What I mean by time spent on platform is time spent consuming content mixed with advertising, and I think Facebook is slightly ahead here.
The formula for both companies is simple:
time spent looking at ads (time spent on platform) x value of ads (targeting effectiveness) = profit
Most of the innovation at both of these companies is in support of that formula. AI at Facebook? It's to extract more data from users. Oculus? That's a new platform that people are expected to spend a lot of time in. Driverless cars? People spend hours a day trapped in a car, and if they aren't driving it, more time to spend looking at ads with the added bonus of location data.
In a twisted sort of way, the most advanced technology in the world exists for the purpose of advertising.
>> Driverless cars? People spend hours a day trapped in a car, and if they aren't driving it, more time to spend looking at ads with the added bonus of location data.
Google might make orders of magnitude more money, just by offering an UBER like service with driver less cars, to such an extent that even current Google is a tiny company, in comparison.
