[complex_exp]

It's hardly in ruin, has more cash on the balance sheet than, for example, all the help sent to Ukraine, military and humanitarian. It's just that making a shit ton of money ain't actually that fun because your job is basically to constantly patch holes in this gargantuan ship that never stops.

[Daishiman]

IBM was in this position way back too. Revenue is a lagging indicator.

[majormajor]

IBM was a big driver in viewing teams and employees as fungible and assembly-line pieces and shifting to offshore work.

I think the fact that Google isn't yet worried about cost more than productivity is a good sign that they're still a ways away from that.

[andromeduck]

What makes you think they aren't? Everything they've done the last few years has been cost driven.

[tyingq]

"In ruin" is probably too strong. But, there are lots of expectations that double-digit YoY revenue growth will continue forever. Growth that far exceeds audience growth. That's mostly from ads, and now the most lucrative queries have nothing but ads above the fold...videos are fully saturated with ads, better targeting is constrained by various privacy laws, Apple, etc. So that expectation cannot be met for much longer. They have squeezed all the easy juice. Growth will continue, but at a much lower rate that more closely matches audience growth.

So, "in ruin" may not be right, but there is some kind of big shift coming. The conditions they've enjoyed for a long time aren't going to hold.

[somsak2]

On the same order of magnitude, but not quite. Plus, the second figure is from four months ago.

https://companiesmarketcap.com/alphabet-google/cash-on-hand/....

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2023-02-...

[H8crilA]

Pledged vs delivered :)

But yeah, the point stands either way.