$94 billion in cash burning a hole in their pocket. $20x billion in new cash pouring in annually, expanding by 10%-20% per year.
In another two years they'll be net cash richer than Apple is (as unlike Apple they pay no dividend and have almost entirely avoided taking on debt).
There aren't very many large companies they can buy with that money, due to perpetually increasing anti-trust concerns. I suppose they could maul ~$25 billion buying Snap and probably get away with it due to Facebook (but comeon).
So what to do? Burn $1.1 billion on self-driving tech. Will it pan out? Doesn't really matter. Their search monopoly isn't going anywhere near-term (probably) and they'll have $200 billion in net cash in another 4 or 5 years. They could vaporize $11.1 billion on self-driving tech in the next couple of years and it would not matter, either to shareholders (oh, some would pretend to be upset) or to their operations.
I can't remember if it was Lazlo Bock or Eric Schmidt, but in one of their books (both?) someone reports a board member opining "You've created the first self-replicating talent machine." Having worked with those cats, that might actually be true.
In another two years they'll be net cash richer than Apple is (as unlike Apple they pay no dividend and have almost entirely avoided taking on debt).
There aren't very many large companies they can buy with that money, due to perpetually increasing anti-trust concerns. I suppose they could maul ~$25 billion buying Snap and probably get away with it due to Facebook (but comeon).
So what to do? Burn $1.1 billion on self-driving tech. Will it pan out? Doesn't really matter. Their search monopoly isn't going anywhere near-term (probably) and they'll have $200 billion in net cash in another 4 or 5 years. They could vaporize $11.1 billion on self-driving tech in the next couple of years and it would not matter, either to shareholders (oh, some would pretend to be upset) or to their operations.