[pja]

Did Google actually have revenue at that point in time? They bought Applied Semantics (for adsense / adwords) in what, 2003? (edit: mlinksva points out that they introduced adwords at the end of 2000)

Inktomi management would probably have had to raise capital on a risky pivot whilst at the same time dropping all of their existing revenue streams in order to compete head to head with Google who at that point didn't even have a way to monetise their technology.

That's a hard thing for any company to do: In this case it would have been the right choice, but it's far easier to say that with the benefit of perfect hindsight.

[mlinksva]

AdWords launched in 2000. Google bought Applied Semantics in 2003 and launched AdSense.