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Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline – Until Now
Article

Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline – Until Now

Alphabet’s CFO Ruth Porat wants to bring focus to Mountain View. Can the moonshot factory adapt?


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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Eye Opening
  • Overview

Recommendation

Can risk-taking innovation coexist with fiscal responsibility? In their detailed article, Bloomberg Businessweek reporters Max Chafkin and Mark Bergen explore this question by examining the reasons behind Google’s recent reorganization into Alphabet, and the fallout from that shift. With the change in structure, a company with a historical lack of internal financial strictures has found itself grappling with the question of how to balance financial discipline with the pursuit of risky creative projects. getAbstract recommends this article to everyone interested in Google, Alphabet and tech innovations.

Take-Aways

  • Historically, Google’s strong advertising revenue allowed its engineers to pursue highly ambitious “moonshot” innovations with little financial oversight.
  • Prior to becoming Alphabet in October 2015, Google had an informal structure that led to “overlaps” and negative press for the company when moonshots like Google Glass didn’t perform as expected.
  • The corporate reorganization created a collection of “standalone companies” separate from Google itself.

About the Authors

Max Chafkin writes for Bloomberg Businessweek and Bloomberg Technology. Mark Bergen is a reporter covering Google and Alphabet at Bloomberg.