// Buying something, rewriting it, and abandoning it, is just squandering money.
I don't see it that way at all. Everything we do with business carries risk. It's really all experimental. Nothing is a sure thing. When you acquire something, you obviously incur the risk of that thing not scaling as well as you think, or over-estimate the fit into your org. You obviously want to make good decisions when you can, but there's a limit to how perfect you can be.
People are familiar with the VC model of betting on a small percentage of runaway hits. This might be similar.
So you can look at each acquisition in isolation and say "dumb" but you have to respect the machine that this is a part of.
> but you have to respect the machine that this is a part of.
I don't respect the machine. I think it reduces innovation across our industry.
The story of google acquisitions so often go this way. They start with a lot of promises - "Your product dreams will be so much bigger at Google! All the resources you need! We believe in you!". When they start at google, everyone eventually realises they need to rebuild their entire product on top of google's infrastructure, "the google way". Inevitably, the remade google version of the product doesn't have "google scale" numbers of users. Or its crushed by some other team within google. Or they're shoved within a product group who see the newcomers as an irrelevant distraction at best, or a threat to their own product at worst. The good people from the acquired team move on within google and the acquired product dies. It happens so often its become a meme.
There have been some notable exceptions: Youtube. Android. Docs (Writely). In each of these cases, google didn't have a similar product at the time of the acquisition and the acquired product team was largely left alone afterwards. As I understand it, Youtube and Android are (still?) kept at arms length in some ways from the rest of the company.
This is a machine of destruction. It destroys innovative ideas and innovative products. I get that they can't all be winners. But google's success rate amongst acquisitions surviving - let alone thriving - is ridiculously low. And I don't think the teams & products that survive do so because of the strength of their work. I think they survive because of luck and politics.
Other companies do this so much better. Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus are very strong products and brands years after being acquired by Facebook. Adobe seems to be taking good care of Figma. And so on.
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if google went bankrupt, and all the smart engineers within their walls were suddenly forced onto the street, where they need to make interesting products people actually care about to justify their salaries. I bet there's all sorts of great product ideas that googlers dream of building - but never will, because of how cushy and comfortable it is there. Google does some great stuff. But I think their employees are capable of so much more.
I think it’s better for the world that a product is tested in the world than tested in the distorted world of Google politics. If your company can’t get product market fit - fine, maybe it was a bad idea. Time for all the talented people to do something else. But if a product gets killed inside Google for some bizarro Google reasons, well, maybe it was a bad idea or maybe it was a great idea. We have no idea. The effort was simply wasted.
I don't see it that way at all. Everything we do with business carries risk. It's really all experimental. Nothing is a sure thing. When you acquire something, you obviously incur the risk of that thing not scaling as well as you think, or over-estimate the fit into your org. You obviously want to make good decisions when you can, but there's a limit to how perfect you can be.
People are familiar with the VC model of betting on a small percentage of runaway hits. This might be similar.
So you can look at each acquisition in isolation and say "dumb" but you have to respect the machine that this is a part of.