[jsnell]

> Google revenues come from ~90% ads.

That's not true, and hasn't been for a decade. For this earnings release, the proportion of revenue from ads was 76%.

> The company gives guidance

No, they don't. As far as I know they've literally never given guidance.

[matwood]

Ok, I divided the search revenue into the revenue number above, but it’s missing TAC. 76% is still the vast majority of revenue.

[jsnell]

TAC shouldn't be part of that computation. It's an expense, not revenue. (Yes, it's confusing that it's in the same table as the revenue numbers, but so is the headcount and you wouldn't try to work it into the equation somehow.)

Also, if you only consider the search revenue you'll err in the opposite direction. It's 55% of their revenue, so pretty soon not even a normal majority. You should look at the "Google Advertising" line.

[matwood]

Thank you!

[westhanover]

What do you think the covering analysts talk to google executives about? The weather?

[jsnell]

From your misplaced sarcasm, it seems that you might not know what "guidance" means in this context. It's the company predicting what their financials will be in the future, such as "our revenue will be in the range $X-$Y in the next quarter". There's a lot of space for discussion between those kinds of predictions and the weather. For example, they could discuss what happened in the previous quarter. They could discuss future plans, without making any exact claims on the impact of those plans.

If you truly believe Google releases guidance, how about you just find a quote for what that supposed guidance was for Q4? You won't find it, because Google does not release guidance. The GP just made it up, just like they made up the numbers.