Late last year Google announced it was restructuring and creating a new holding company called Alphabet, at the time I hoped it would bring more accountability into a business that’s becoming notable for easily distracted management and sprawling bureaucracy.
Yesterday the company released its latest quarterly reports and it appears far from improving transparency, the restructure has resulted in the operation of ‘moonshots’ – termed ‘Other Bets’ in the reports – becoming even more shrouded in mystery.
Other Bets, which includes Google Fiber, Ventures and Google X, made a stonking $3.1 billion loss while 90% of revenues still comes from the advertising business.
Even within the advertising arm there’s little transparency as the division includes Apps, Android and YouTube along with the lucrative Search and Ads business. There’s little information of how these divisions are travelling on their own.
As Dennis Howlett at Diginomica points out, there will come a time when shareholders demand some accountability as the losses in the Other Bets are not trivial but it seems that time is some way off.
For Google, the biggest risk is being disrupted themselves. Their ‘river of gold’ is not dissimilar to that the newspaper industry floated along prior to the web – and Google – arriving.
Another aspect is that of culture where most parts of the business are free of accountability as the lucrative Ad division’s revenues allow disinterested management and needless bureaucracy to thrive.
While Alphabet’s revenues are impressive, this is a company dangerously reliant on one line of business. History has not treated such ventures well.