[melling]

Company X invests billions into the "future". This continues for 5-10 years without results turning into profitable products or direct improvements. Shareholders begin to question the value of those investments. "Is the R&D being well spent?" Google hasn't turned any moonshot into a profitable product yet, right? They're going to need a winner or two to convince investors.

Apple will be in the same position in a few years because they are ramping up R&D.

[eru]

Doesn't matter too much what Google/Alphabet shareholders think. The controlling majority is with the founders, and the company is not going to the markets anytime soon to ask for more capital.

[melling]

"any time soon" What exactly does that mean? The next two years? If people start dumping your stock, I'm sure there will be repercussions.

[eru]

What kind of repercussions? Please elaborate.

The only result of a lower stock price that I can see is that Google employees might demand cash instead of stock for compensation. (But Google still does make enough in cash.)

And by 'demand' I mean: get unhappy, be more likely to leave, and for new hires, be more likely to take up alternative offers instead.

[knowaveragejoe]

Well, to be fair, people probably won't be dumping their stock over this news.

[melling]

To be really fair, I didn't say they would. I was addressing the long-term impact of spending large sums of money without any clear benefit.

People are usually content while a company is growing fast enough.

[manarth]

On the other hand, if research for a particular moonshot ends up creating something that the other products can use (and become more profitable/successful as a result) - such as Google Brain - the moonshot itself doesn't need to succeed for the project to be considered worthwhile.

[melling]

Yes, that would fall under direct improvements, right? You can link the research to a profit use.