In the final portion of a TechTrek class meeting in February, Jere Doyle gives his young charges a tech history lesson. First, he channels Socrates and draws knowledge and understanding out of the students by peppering them with questions.
淕oogle,� says Doyle. 淲hat kind of company is it?�
淎 data company,� suggests one young woman.
淲hy do you say that?�
淓verything is based on data.�
淭hat they make on their own?�
淣辞.�
淲here do they get it from?�
淔rom people, users.�
淚t an advertising company,� says JB Bruggeman �19, a business analytics and marketing student. (Atypically, TechTrek West will be a trip home for Bruggeman: he grew up in Silicon Valley.)
Doyle asks, 淲hy do you say that?�
淏ecause 90 percent of their revenues come from advertising.�
淲hat their most successful product?� Doyle asks the class.
淭he search engine,� a student answers.
淪earch,� Doyle agreed. 淯nlike when I was here in the old days, and you had to go to Bapst Library to look something up.�
The class dwells on why, if Google has been so successful with its search engine and ad revenues, its parent company, Alphabet, has been pursuing 渕oonshots,� such as the hot-air balloon (intended to bring internet service to the Third World) and self-driving cars.
淚檝e been stuck behind self-driving test cars,� says JB Bruggeman �19, recalling incidents on the highways back home in California. 淭hey檙e sooo slow.�
淚f you honk, do they speed up?� Doyle wonders.
淣辞.�
But for all the criticism or investor concern that Google lacks focus, Doyle goes on, 渢hey nailed search [and] they nailed local [advertising]. Does anyone know who their big competitor was, back in 1999? The Yellow Pages. If you were a plumber, you would pay $3,000 for an ad in the phone book. Maybe it got you a call. Who knows? Google said, 榃e檒l only charge you if somebody calls.櫇
As a result of their laser focus on that model, made possible by their excellence in algorithms and analytics, Google remained standing amid the dot-com bust of the early 2000s. 淚 think Google saved the internet,� says Doyle.
Doyle co-instructor Gerald Kane weighs in on the company current moonshots. 淲hat legacy companies run into is, they don檛 know how to be innovative anymore. Once you檙e a big company, it hard to manage 60,000 employees. It a bureaucracy. Google approach is to plant a thousand flowers,� in the form of bets攖hat is, research攐n other products. 淭hat how to remain innovative. That the whole game.�