[IB885588]

Not to splice hair, but Google isn't just "surviving", so the amount needed for DDG to survive is probably even smaller than that. They don't need to be as profitable as Google Search (which is much more profitable than the company as a whole) to do well.

[ashtonkem]

Google is not only massively profitable, they’re also running a ton of loss leading services designed to feed more data into the machine, like Gmail, as well as a ton of other experimental ventures that DDG isn’t doing.

Google is also headquartered in some of the most expensive real estate in America, while DDG is in Pennsylvania. I’d bet that Google is paying a lot more in land cost per employee than DDG is.

[elliekelly]

I live near DDG HQ, it’s not even a whole building. It can’t be more than a handful of offices. DDG’s real estate expenses are essentially $0 compared to whatever Google is spending.

[systemBuilder]

Not anymore. Ruth Porat has been Ruthlessly cutting all the "give back to mankind" projects, YouTube became profitable recently after TEN years of losses, and Google for work is now profitable which means Google drive and Google docs makes money, finally. when I worked on search for Google we had 700 people in a building that was probably 25000 square feet. It felt almost like a chicken farm. Not many people born in America worked there.

[D-Coder]

"Split hairs". If that's not... splitting hairs.

[IB885588]

I prefer to splice them, personally, I like a challenge.