Google Bets: Chump Change
April 30, 2021
In the midst of stakeholder ebullience about Alphabet Google’s money making prowess, I spotted one interesting comment. “Alphabet Reports Q1 2021 Revenue of $55.3 Billion” included this statement:
The closely-watched “Other Bets” continues to lose money. It reported $198 million revenue primarily generated by Verily and Fiber from $135 million in Q1 of 2020. However, it lost $1.15 billion compared to $1.12 billion in the same quarter of last year.
For a company of Alphabet Google YouTube’s scale this is a modest loss. However, it does beg a couple of questions:
- Is the data analysis used to decide upon what to wager flawed?
- Is there high value information about the firm’s management of certain projects contained in these increasing and continuing losses?
Alphabet does online advertising and data vending. Innovation may be more of a reach than some expected.
Stephen E Arnold, April 30, 2021
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