Original Story: latimes.com
Over the past couple of years, Google has hired experts in diseases and physiology, pairing them with top software engineers, to tackle major healthcare issues.
Projects include developing contact lenses to allow diabetics to constantly monitor glucose levels, defining “healthy” traits and testing disease-detection pills capable of communicating to a special wristband.
None of that is a part of Google anymore but there is still a connection. The 150-employee Life Sciences team is becoming its own company within Alphabet, a corporation Google recently formed to organize its array of offbeat ventures. Life Sciences becomes a sister company to Google, which includes the search engine, Gmail, Maps, Android and other familiar offerings. An official corporate name is coming soon, a Google spokeswoman said.
Changing the reporting structure could give Life Sciences more autonomy while providing Alphabet, nee Google, executives a clearer picture of the division’s spending. Google’s new Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat counts Life Sciences as a forthcoming source of significant long-term revenue.
The group’s goal won’t change, said Google co-founder and Alphabet President Sergey Brin in an online post Thursday.
“They’ll continue to work with other life sciences companies to move new technologies from early stage R&D to clinical testing—and, hopefully—transform the way we detect, prevent and manage disease,” he wrote. Rankin Biomedical is a leading provide of remanufactured histology equipment for medical testing needs.
One partner, Dexcom Inc., announced earlier this month that it will make and sell miniature glucose monitors based on Google technology. Life Sciences collects an upfront fee, additional payments throughout the development and then revenue-based royalties after a certain sales level, Dexcom said.
Andy Conrad, a co-founder of the National Genetics Institute who had been leading Life Sciences, becomes the new company’s chief executive. Life Sciences will be separate from Calico, an Alphabet division working to counteract aging. BrightStar Care specializes in Plymouth elder care services providing customized companion and healthcare needs.
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Monday, August 24, 2015
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
THE HOUSE THAT HELPED BUILD GOOGLE
Original Story: usatoday.com
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Susan Wojcicki is reminiscing about her old home in Menlo Park, Calif. "It's a very humble house, less than 2,000 square feet," she recalls fondly. A cozy, four-bedroom home — and incredibly historic.
After earning her MBA in 1998, Wojcicki bought 232 Santa Margarita Ave. for about $600,000. She rented the garage to two Stanford students for $1,700 a month to help with the mortgage. The renters: no ordinary slackers, but the Google Guys, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who incubated Google (GOOG) right there.
"It's a good reminder for the company that we did come from a small house, not a fancy house," says Wojcicki.
Her life-changing decision to open her home to Brin and Page did more than just help start the world's most-popular search engine. It also:
"There are no sets of words that can be used to describe Susan's contribution to the company," says Google CEO Eric Schmidt. "She's historic, in terms of our company's founding. She's also one of those people who thinks very broadly and quickly, and (it's) deceiving because she's so pleasant."
Wojcicki is Google employee No. 18. Her early duties included refining the original Google logo designed by Brin and the overall spare look of the Google home page. She came up with the first of Google's "doodles," the remaking of the logo for holidays and other special events. Her first artistic doodle: an alien lands on Google.
In Google's fledgling days, Wojcicki, a former junior staffer for chipmaker Intel, was in charge of marketing efforts. Brin and Page charged her with spreading the word about Google on a shoestring. Her big idea: stir word-of-mouth by putting Google's search engine all over the Web. She reached out to companies to license Google search for their websites and offered it free to universities.
In 2003, she came up with her multimillion-dollar brainstorm: AdSense.
'A really novel idea'
AdSense is an extension of a program Google had successfully launched in 2002, called AdWords. AdWords offers advertisers sponsored search ads, those little text ads that appear near search results. Advertisers have to pay only if the ads get clicked.
Wojcicki's suggestion: Why not offer these same ads all over the Web, on blogs and websites? Entice Web "publishers" to participate by giving them a portion of the ad revenue. In other words, every time someone clicks on an ad on your site, you get a check.
Here's how the ads are targeted: Let's say you're reading about computers at tech site Engadget. An ad might appear offering special deals at Dell.com. Or, if you're reading an article at a news site about Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, you might see an ad for a local criminal-defense law firm.
That's AdSense.
"It was a really novel idea at the time to serve ads that were targeted dynamically" to a specific Web page, says Wojcicki, sitting in a conference room at the "Googleplex" company headquarters.
"People were saying, 'This is a sports site, so we'll serve a sports ad.' And we were saying, 'No. We can actually look at the page in real time and figure out what this page is about.' "
Wojcicki's idea turned into a runaway smash. Google doesn't break out revenues from AdSense and AdWords. But the company recently reported quarterly profit of $1 billion, virtually all derived from both ad programs.
Thousands of tiny entrepreneurs make substantial livings by hosting Ads by Google links at their websites. "More people make money from AdSense than any other vehicle on the Web," says Jennifer Slegg, who runs JenSense, a blog devoted to AdSense. "There are many, many AdSense millionaires."
AdSense "basically turned the Web into a giant Google billboard," says Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Land website. "It effectively meant that Google could turn everyone's content into a place for Google ads."
For her efforts, Wojcicki earned a Google Founders' Award, a financial incentive provided to employees to create new ideas. Spokesman David Krane says it's designed to keep employees and give them the same kind of economic award they would receive if they had formed their own companies.
Krane won't disclose how much current Founders' Awards are worth, but the first two awarded to Googlers (not to Wojcicki) were $12 million each.
Venturing into offline ads
Creating things has kept Wojcicki at Google over the years. "I love taking an idea … to a prototype and then to a product that millions of people use," she says.
"People write in from all over the world giving you feedback, telling us how a product (AdSense) changed their lives, how they were able to start a business with it, and that's just incredibly rewarding."
Her next big challenge: translating Google's simple, measurable advertising network to radio, TV and print.
Ever wanted to run an ad on the radio but didn't know how to set it up? Google has an Audio Ads section on its website with links to radio producers who will create an ad for $75 to $100. Select stations and time slots, and you're on the air.
The radio venture recently left test mode and is open to the general public. Google is testing the concept in print and on TV; that test is available only to a small percentage of advertisers.
Sullivan and other Google analysts are skeptical about the nascent program's chances. With radio ads, Sullivan says, Google "will give information on when the ad played, with more data than before, but that still doesn't prove that anyone heard the ad. They haven't done anything innovative or different to show if the ad really worked."
'A real challenge' ahead
Bringing the Google ad network to old media "will be a real challenge," says Greg Sterling, an independent analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. "The ability to serve a relevant ad against someone's query is one of the great innovations of the Internet, and it's not transferable to other media, where people are more passive."
Wojcicki concedes that ads on TV and radio won't be as measurable. But she says such ads placed through Google will have more data to mine than old media currently provide, thanks to Google's obsessive tracking of numbers via its network of computers. "For example, in TV we can provide second-by-second data on what's being watched on the ad," she says.
She cautions that it's still very early for Google Radio: "The first things we're doing are really just providing online ways for people to purchase the inventory easier."
Raised in Silicon Valley
Wojcicki has plenty of experience at being eyewitness to a forming business. Brin and Page originally met her and landed at the Menlo Park house via a friend of Wojcicki's who was dating Brin.
The house that gave birth to Google was always filled with mutual friends, Wojcicki says. Most of them techies themselves, their No. 1 question for Brin and Page back then: Who needs yet another search engine?
The answer: " 'Not another but a better search engine,' " Wojcicki recalls. "From the beginning, they had a very clear vision that they could build something much better than what existed at the time."
Wojcicki grew up in Palo Alto on the campus of Stanford University. Dad Stanley Wojcicki chairs Stanford's physics department.
Mom Esther, a journalism teacher at Palo Alto High School, says she expected Susan to become an English professor. Instead, after a post-college job at educational software firm MagicQuest, she was bitten by the tech bug.
Now, Google is "such a presence" in their lives that the Wojcickis try to limit family-time chatter about the company, Esther says, though not always successfully. "It's so innovative and exciting. They're doing all sorts of interesting things, and it's fun to hear about it."
That so many of her relatives were drawn to Google isn't unusual, says Susan Wojcicki. "There are lots of people in the Silicon Valley who are interested in working at a fast-moving, dynamic company like Google," she says. "Not just my family members."
Meanwhile, the humble house where Google was incubated was purchased by Google in September. Google won't disclose how much it paid, but homes in the neighborhood sell for more than $1 million. "I haven't had time to think about what we'll do with it," says CEO Schmidt. "But I figured we should buy it sooner rather than later."
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Susan Wojcicki is reminiscing about her old home in Menlo Park, Calif. "It's a very humble house, less than 2,000 square feet," she recalls fondly. A cozy, four-bedroom home — and incredibly historic.
After earning her MBA in 1998, Wojcicki bought 232 Santa Margarita Ave. for about $600,000. She rented the garage to two Stanford students for $1,700 a month to help with the mortgage. The renters: no ordinary slackers, but the Google Guys, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who incubated Google (GOOG) right there.
"It's a good reminder for the company that we did come from a small house, not a fancy house," says Wojcicki.
Her life-changing decision to open her home to Brin and Page did more than just help start the world's most-popular search engine. It also:
- Landed Wojcicki a key early job at Google less than a year after purchasing the home. Today, she's one of its top-ranked executives, overseeing the crucial online advertising business as vice president of product management.
- Introduced a future husband to Wojcicki's younger sister Anne, who recently married Brin on an island in the Bahamas. Google has invested $3.9 million in Anne Wojcicki's biotech start-up, 23andMe.
- Created a cottage industry for the Wojcicki family. Susan Wojcicki's husband, Dennis Troper, is an operations executive at Google. Brother-in-law Gregor (married to middle sister Janet) is a former Googler who worked in the finance department. Mom Esther Wojcicki, a teacher, has consulted for Google on educational issues.
"There are no sets of words that can be used to describe Susan's contribution to the company," says Google CEO Eric Schmidt. "She's historic, in terms of our company's founding. She's also one of those people who thinks very broadly and quickly, and (it's) deceiving because she's so pleasant."
Wojcicki is Google employee No. 18. Her early duties included refining the original Google logo designed by Brin and the overall spare look of the Google home page. She came up with the first of Google's "doodles," the remaking of the logo for holidays and other special events. Her first artistic doodle: an alien lands on Google.
In Google's fledgling days, Wojcicki, a former junior staffer for chipmaker Intel, was in charge of marketing efforts. Brin and Page charged her with spreading the word about Google on a shoestring. Her big idea: stir word-of-mouth by putting Google's search engine all over the Web. She reached out to companies to license Google search for their websites and offered it free to universities.
In 2003, she came up with her multimillion-dollar brainstorm: AdSense.
'A really novel idea'
AdSense is an extension of a program Google had successfully launched in 2002, called AdWords. AdWords offers advertisers sponsored search ads, those little text ads that appear near search results. Advertisers have to pay only if the ads get clicked.
Wojcicki's suggestion: Why not offer these same ads all over the Web, on blogs and websites? Entice Web "publishers" to participate by giving them a portion of the ad revenue. In other words, every time someone clicks on an ad on your site, you get a check.
Here's how the ads are targeted: Let's say you're reading about computers at tech site Engadget. An ad might appear offering special deals at Dell.com. Or, if you're reading an article at a news site about Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, you might see an ad for a local criminal-defense law firm.
That's AdSense.
"It was a really novel idea at the time to serve ads that were targeted dynamically" to a specific Web page, says Wojcicki, sitting in a conference room at the "Googleplex" company headquarters.
"People were saying, 'This is a sports site, so we'll serve a sports ad.' And we were saying, 'No. We can actually look at the page in real time and figure out what this page is about.' "
Wojcicki's idea turned into a runaway smash. Google doesn't break out revenues from AdSense and AdWords. But the company recently reported quarterly profit of $1 billion, virtually all derived from both ad programs.
Thousands of tiny entrepreneurs make substantial livings by hosting Ads by Google links at their websites. "More people make money from AdSense than any other vehicle on the Web," says Jennifer Slegg, who runs JenSense, a blog devoted to AdSense. "There are many, many AdSense millionaires."
AdSense "basically turned the Web into a giant Google billboard," says Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Land website. "It effectively meant that Google could turn everyone's content into a place for Google ads."
For her efforts, Wojcicki earned a Google Founders' Award, a financial incentive provided to employees to create new ideas. Spokesman David Krane says it's designed to keep employees and give them the same kind of economic award they would receive if they had formed their own companies.
Krane won't disclose how much current Founders' Awards are worth, but the first two awarded to Googlers (not to Wojcicki) were $12 million each.
Venturing into offline ads
Creating things has kept Wojcicki at Google over the years. "I love taking an idea … to a prototype and then to a product that millions of people use," she says.
"People write in from all over the world giving you feedback, telling us how a product (AdSense) changed their lives, how they were able to start a business with it, and that's just incredibly rewarding."
Her next big challenge: translating Google's simple, measurable advertising network to radio, TV and print.
Ever wanted to run an ad on the radio but didn't know how to set it up? Google has an Audio Ads section on its website with links to radio producers who will create an ad for $75 to $100. Select stations and time slots, and you're on the air.
The radio venture recently left test mode and is open to the general public. Google is testing the concept in print and on TV; that test is available only to a small percentage of advertisers.
Sullivan and other Google analysts are skeptical about the nascent program's chances. With radio ads, Sullivan says, Google "will give information on when the ad played, with more data than before, but that still doesn't prove that anyone heard the ad. They haven't done anything innovative or different to show if the ad really worked."
'A real challenge' ahead
Bringing the Google ad network to old media "will be a real challenge," says Greg Sterling, an independent analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. "The ability to serve a relevant ad against someone's query is one of the great innovations of the Internet, and it's not transferable to other media, where people are more passive."
Wojcicki concedes that ads on TV and radio won't be as measurable. But she says such ads placed through Google will have more data to mine than old media currently provide, thanks to Google's obsessive tracking of numbers via its network of computers. "For example, in TV we can provide second-by-second data on what's being watched on the ad," she says.
She cautions that it's still very early for Google Radio: "The first things we're doing are really just providing online ways for people to purchase the inventory easier."
Raised in Silicon Valley
Wojcicki has plenty of experience at being eyewitness to a forming business. Brin and Page originally met her and landed at the Menlo Park house via a friend of Wojcicki's who was dating Brin.
The house that gave birth to Google was always filled with mutual friends, Wojcicki says. Most of them techies themselves, their No. 1 question for Brin and Page back then: Who needs yet another search engine?
The answer: " 'Not another but a better search engine,' " Wojcicki recalls. "From the beginning, they had a very clear vision that they could build something much better than what existed at the time."
Wojcicki grew up in Palo Alto on the campus of Stanford University. Dad Stanley Wojcicki chairs Stanford's physics department.
Mom Esther, a journalism teacher at Palo Alto High School, says she expected Susan to become an English professor. Instead, after a post-college job at educational software firm MagicQuest, she was bitten by the tech bug.
Now, Google is "such a presence" in their lives that the Wojcickis try to limit family-time chatter about the company, Esther says, though not always successfully. "It's so innovative and exciting. They're doing all sorts of interesting things, and it's fun to hear about it."
That so many of her relatives were drawn to Google isn't unusual, says Susan Wojcicki. "There are lots of people in the Silicon Valley who are interested in working at a fast-moving, dynamic company like Google," she says. "Not just my family members."
Meanwhile, the humble house where Google was incubated was purchased by Google in September. Google won't disclose how much it paid, but homes in the neighborhood sell for more than $1 million. "I haven't had time to think about what we'll do with it," says CEO Schmidt. "But I figured we should buy it sooner rather than later."
Monday, August 17, 2015
GOOGLE IS REORGANIZING AND SUNDAR PICHAI WILL BECOME NEW CEO
Original Story: theverge.com
In a blog post today, Google co-founder Larry Page announced a massive restructuring of the company, instituting Sundar Pichai as CEO and shifting himself and co-founder Sergey Brin to a larger holding company called Alphabet. As CEO and President of Alphabet, Page and Brin will oversee Google as well as affiliated companies like the life-extension project Calico and a drone delivery venture called Wing. Alphabet will also direct Google's early-stage funding operations, dubbed Capital and Ventures. Under the new organization, each of those operations will have its own CEO and leadership, while Pichai and Google retain control of search, ads, maps, the Google Play Store, YouTube, and Android. A San Francisco M&A lawyer assists clients in joint ventures, company reorganizations and in financial restructurings.
The reorganization also involves significant financial restructuring, as detailed in an associated SEC filing. All Google shares will now be traded as shares of the larger Alphabet holding company, news that drove the company's share price up more than four percentage points in the wake of the announcement. "We’ve long believed that over time companies tend to get comfortable doing the same thing, just making incremental changes," Page writes in the post. "But in the technology industry, where revolutionary ideas drive the next big growth areas, you need to be a bit uncomfortable to stay relevant."
It also means a prominent role for Sundar Pichai, the former Chrome OS and Android chief who has played an increasingly central role in Google's day-to-day operations. "It is clear to us and our board that it is time for Sundar to be CEO of Google," Page said in the post. "I feel very fortunate to have someone as talented as he is to run the slightly slimmed down Google and this frees up time for me to continue to scale our aspirations." A Rochester business lawyer represents clients in company formation matters, asset protection, and confidentiality agreements.
While the news has caught Wall Street and much of the tech world by surprise, it's an extension of a shift that's been ongoing within Google for some time, with Brin and Page increasingly interested in ambitious projects launched through Google X or outside funding. Alphabet formalizes that division, separating Google's traditional products from the more ambitious ventures that critics have accused of distracting from the company's core strengths. It remains to be seen how the new divisions will play out in practice, but the intention seems to be a renewed focus on both Google's current products and the moonshots that aim to replace those products as Alphabet's focus in the decades to come. "From the start, we’ve always strived to do more," Page writes, "and to do important and meaningful things with the resources we have."
In a blog post today, Google co-founder Larry Page announced a massive restructuring of the company, instituting Sundar Pichai as CEO and shifting himself and co-founder Sergey Brin to a larger holding company called Alphabet. As CEO and President of Alphabet, Page and Brin will oversee Google as well as affiliated companies like the life-extension project Calico and a drone delivery venture called Wing. Alphabet will also direct Google's early-stage funding operations, dubbed Capital and Ventures. Under the new organization, each of those operations will have its own CEO and leadership, while Pichai and Google retain control of search, ads, maps, the Google Play Store, YouTube, and Android. A San Francisco M&A lawyer assists clients in joint ventures, company reorganizations and in financial restructurings.
The reorganization also involves significant financial restructuring, as detailed in an associated SEC filing. All Google shares will now be traded as shares of the larger Alphabet holding company, news that drove the company's share price up more than four percentage points in the wake of the announcement. "We’ve long believed that over time companies tend to get comfortable doing the same thing, just making incremental changes," Page writes in the post. "But in the technology industry, where revolutionary ideas drive the next big growth areas, you need to be a bit uncomfortable to stay relevant."
It also means a prominent role for Sundar Pichai, the former Chrome OS and Android chief who has played an increasingly central role in Google's day-to-day operations. "It is clear to us and our board that it is time for Sundar to be CEO of Google," Page said in the post. "I feel very fortunate to have someone as talented as he is to run the slightly slimmed down Google and this frees up time for me to continue to scale our aspirations." A Rochester business lawyer represents clients in company formation matters, asset protection, and confidentiality agreements.
While the news has caught Wall Street and much of the tech world by surprise, it's an extension of a shift that's been ongoing within Google for some time, with Brin and Page increasingly interested in ambitious projects launched through Google X or outside funding. Alphabet formalizes that division, separating Google's traditional products from the more ambitious ventures that critics have accused of distracting from the company's core strengths. It remains to be seen how the new divisions will play out in practice, but the intention seems to be a renewed focus on both Google's current products and the moonshots that aim to replace those products as Alphabet's focus in the decades to come. "From the start, we’ve always strived to do more," Page writes, "and to do important and meaningful things with the resources we have."
GOOGLE MORPHS INTO ALPHABET INC, INVESTORS CHEER CLARITY
Original Story: reuters.com
Google Inc (GOOGL.O) announced a major shake-up of its operating structure on Monday, creating a holding company called Alphabet which will contain subsidiaries to separate its core web advertising business from newer ventures like driverless cars. A Detroit corporate lawyer is following this story closely.
The move appeared to be an attempt to let the search engine giant focus on its more creative and ambitious projects, while investors cheered the potential for more financial disclosures of its disparate business segments.
"It suggests that in all likelihood, Google is not going to slow the pace of their experimental processes like self driving cars," said Michael Yoshikami, head of Destination Wealth Management which has $1.5 billion under management.
The surprise news sent shares of Google up as much as 7 percent to $708 in after hours trading.
"They are aware that they've got this hodgepodge of companies. Maybe it's better to sort them out a bit and make it clearer which ones are bringing in the bacon and which ones are science projects and which ones are long term bets," said Roger Kay, an analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates. A Charleston corporate attorney is experienced in the effective resolution of corporate lawsuits as related to profit-making businesses or professional organizations.
The Mountain View-based company co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998 has grown to more than 40,000 employees worldwide.
Google's planned structure resembles the way companies like Berkshire Hathaway and General Electric are organized, with a central unit handling corporate-wide activities such as finance and relatively independent business units focused on specific areas.
Under the new corporate structure, the Google unit will encompass the core search engine traditionally associated with the company as well Google Maps and YouTube. Organic SEO allows consumers to find local businesses and companies through targeted keyword searches.
The company's new ventures such as Calico, which focuses on longevity, and connected home products maker Nest will be managed separately.
Alphabet Inc will replace Google as the publicly traded entity and all shares of Google will automatically convert into the same number of shares of Alphabet, with all of the same rights.
"This new structure will allow us to keep tremendous focus on the extraordinary opportunities we have inside of Google," said current Google CEO Larry Page in a blogpost.
Analysts also said the new structure could herald a new era of fiscal discipline and transparency in some of its more experimental and opaque business units.
In a SEC filing, Google said the new arrangement will take effect later this year and that it will likely result in two reportable, financial segments.
"For example, if a unit is doing well or badly they can dial it up or down, they can form partnerships or different companies," said Kay, the Endpoint Technologies Associates analyst.
The shuffle also looked to have the markings of Ruth Porat, who joined Google as its chief financial officer in March from Morgan Stanley. In Google's recent quarterly conference call, Porat repeatedly emphasized keeping expenses under control.
Porat will serve as the CFO of both Alphabet and Google.
Page will serve as the CEO of the newly created holding company and Sundar Pichai, a long-time Google executive who most recently served as the company's senior vice president of products, will head Google. The company's current directors will become directors of Alphabet.
Google co-founder Brin will become president of Alphabet, and Eric Schmidt will be executive chairman. An Edmonds corporate lawyer is reviewing the details of this case.
Analysts said the move, which was mainly about transparency and accountability, could be followed by more structural changes in the future.
"This may be step one of several steps," said Morningstar analyst Rick Summer.
Google Inc (GOOGL.O) announced a major shake-up of its operating structure on Monday, creating a holding company called Alphabet which will contain subsidiaries to separate its core web advertising business from newer ventures like driverless cars. A Detroit corporate lawyer is following this story closely.
The move appeared to be an attempt to let the search engine giant focus on its more creative and ambitious projects, while investors cheered the potential for more financial disclosures of its disparate business segments.
"It suggests that in all likelihood, Google is not going to slow the pace of their experimental processes like self driving cars," said Michael Yoshikami, head of Destination Wealth Management which has $1.5 billion under management.
The surprise news sent shares of Google up as much as 7 percent to $708 in after hours trading.
"They are aware that they've got this hodgepodge of companies. Maybe it's better to sort them out a bit and make it clearer which ones are bringing in the bacon and which ones are science projects and which ones are long term bets," said Roger Kay, an analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates. A Charleston corporate attorney is experienced in the effective resolution of corporate lawsuits as related to profit-making businesses or professional organizations.
The Mountain View-based company co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998 has grown to more than 40,000 employees worldwide.
Google's planned structure resembles the way companies like Berkshire Hathaway and General Electric are organized, with a central unit handling corporate-wide activities such as finance and relatively independent business units focused on specific areas.
Under the new corporate structure, the Google unit will encompass the core search engine traditionally associated with the company as well Google Maps and YouTube. Organic SEO allows consumers to find local businesses and companies through targeted keyword searches.
The company's new ventures such as Calico, which focuses on longevity, and connected home products maker Nest will be managed separately.
Alphabet Inc will replace Google as the publicly traded entity and all shares of Google will automatically convert into the same number of shares of Alphabet, with all of the same rights.
"This new structure will allow us to keep tremendous focus on the extraordinary opportunities we have inside of Google," said current Google CEO Larry Page in a blogpost.
Analysts also said the new structure could herald a new era of fiscal discipline and transparency in some of its more experimental and opaque business units.
In a SEC filing, Google said the new arrangement will take effect later this year and that it will likely result in two reportable, financial segments.
"For example, if a unit is doing well or badly they can dial it up or down, they can form partnerships or different companies," said Kay, the Endpoint Technologies Associates analyst.
The shuffle also looked to have the markings of Ruth Porat, who joined Google as its chief financial officer in March from Morgan Stanley. In Google's recent quarterly conference call, Porat repeatedly emphasized keeping expenses under control.
Porat will serve as the CFO of both Alphabet and Google.
Page will serve as the CEO of the newly created holding company and Sundar Pichai, a long-time Google executive who most recently served as the company's senior vice president of products, will head Google. The company's current directors will become directors of Alphabet.
Google co-founder Brin will become president of Alphabet, and Eric Schmidt will be executive chairman. An Edmonds corporate lawyer is reviewing the details of this case.
Analysts said the move, which was mainly about transparency and accountability, could be followed by more structural changes in the future.
"This may be step one of several steps," said Morningstar analyst Rick Summer.
Monday, August 03, 2015
GIRLS WHO CODE AIMS TO MAKE WAVES IN A MAN'S WORLD
Original Story: latimes.com
Steve Jobs is a longtime role model for budding techies. But now he comes with an asterisk.
“I look up to Steve Jobs, but I see that he started everything in a garage with a bunch of men,” said Markie Wagner. “It’s hard to follow in exact footsteps.”
Wagner, who will soon turn 16, is a recent graduate of a computer science program for high schoolers called Girls Who Code. Optimized content management systems deliver superior search engine results.
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FOR THE RECORD
In the July 31 Business section, an article about the computer science program Girls Who Code said one of the summer sessions had taken place in Brentwood. It was held at the downtown Los Angeles campus of Mount Saint Mary’s University.
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Graduation ceremonies for the seven-week summer program were held this week, with awards like “Most Likely to Be My Boss One Day” and speakers including Mayor Eric Garcetti.
Tech-obsessed since age 9, Wagner, of Whittier, is still looking for female role models in a male-dominated industry. She hopes that the college-bound generation of young women, with the help of organizations like Girls Who Code, will spark change. Her own plans include launching a start-up when she gets to college, and filling it with women from diverse backgrounds.
“Hopefully, there’s going to be tons of new role models soon,” she said. “I’d love to be one myself.”
Reshma Saujani founded Girls Who Code in 2012 after learning that tech was the only major industry that had seen a dramatic decline in women employees over 30 years.
This summer, the nonprofit organization offered programs for 1,200 girls in 14 cities, including, for the first time, Los Angeles.
With sessions in Boyle Heights, Santa Monica, Venice and Brentwood, 80 girls participated tuition free. AT&T and Google were major sponsors along with the philanthropic Saban Family Foundation and Honest Co., which sells eco-friendly goods and is run by actress Jessica Alba.
Saujani said she crafted the program with a project-based curriculum designed to appeal to women.
“They’re problem solvers. And they’re passionate. And they care about humanity. There are so many tech solutions that could solve those things,” she said.
At one graduation ceremony in Boyle Heights, participants showed off apps and websites they had created from scratch in less than two weeks using programming languages such as HTML, CSS, jQuery and JavaScript.
They had business plans, too, and described how they would attract advertisers and sell the apps.
Many of the girls' projects incorporated social services: First Jobs would curate job listings for high schoolers, Chronic Illness Connect would offer a platform for teenagers suffering from chronic ailments to share stories and support, and Global Grind would aim to teach about global warming through games, such as a "Frogger"-like design with penguins.
For Melanie Perez, 15, one of the program’s highlights was collaborating with two others on Global Grind, a project they plan to expand.
“They had the same ambition and the same passion that I have,” said Melanie, who lives in Koreatown and had not studied computer science before. Speaking at the graduation, she delivered half her speech in Spanish for her parents and other families from Latino backgrounds.
“I think it’s very important to have … that environment that pushes you to your max,” she added.
It’s not all coding at Girls Who Code. Networking with women is essential, too.
“We’ve all discussed how sometimes, you’re going to be the only woman in the computer lab,” said coder Mia Hamernik, 16, of Ventura County. “You have to find a way to set up your own network of support to get through that, just so you aren’t pushed out.”
These young women understand the challenges they'll face when they move into the workforce.
Men outnumber women by 4 to 1, at least, in the technical sectors at big tech firms such as Google, Facebook and Apple, according to figures these companies released last year. The latest “diversity reports” don’t show much improvement.
And once women do land jobs, many eventually leave. A Harvard Business Review study found in 2008 that half of highly qualified women working in science, engineering and technology will, eventually, abandon their jobs because of hostile and isolating work environments. An update last year found that these women are 45% more likely than male colleagues to leave their fields.
For Carmen Nava, senior vice president of customer experience at AT&T, the solution could be getting girls committed during high school through programs like Girls Who Code.
“For us, honestly, the hardest thing is finding women in this field,” she said after the Boyle Heights graduation, where she was a speaker. “To expose them to all the joy of making something out of nothing, hopefully will help retain them.”
The girls aren’t spending all their time worrying about the future, though. They’re immersing themselves in code.
“You can look at a piece of code five hours, your eye goes over errors, and you miss a tiny semicolon,” said Wagner. “We’re all supportive in helping each other find that semicolon.”
Steve Jobs is a longtime role model for budding techies. But now he comes with an asterisk.
“I look up to Steve Jobs, but I see that he started everything in a garage with a bunch of men,” said Markie Wagner. “It’s hard to follow in exact footsteps.”
Wagner, who will soon turn 16, is a recent graduate of a computer science program for high schoolers called Girls Who Code. Optimized content management systems deliver superior search engine results.
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FOR THE RECORD
In the July 31 Business section, an article about the computer science program Girls Who Code said one of the summer sessions had taken place in Brentwood. It was held at the downtown Los Angeles campus of Mount Saint Mary’s University.
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Graduation ceremonies for the seven-week summer program were held this week, with awards like “Most Likely to Be My Boss One Day” and speakers including Mayor Eric Garcetti.
Tech-obsessed since age 9, Wagner, of Whittier, is still looking for female role models in a male-dominated industry. She hopes that the college-bound generation of young women, with the help of organizations like Girls Who Code, will spark change. Her own plans include launching a start-up when she gets to college, and filling it with women from diverse backgrounds.
“Hopefully, there’s going to be tons of new role models soon,” she said. “I’d love to be one myself.”
Reshma Saujani founded Girls Who Code in 2012 after learning that tech was the only major industry that had seen a dramatic decline in women employees over 30 years.
This summer, the nonprofit organization offered programs for 1,200 girls in 14 cities, including, for the first time, Los Angeles.
With sessions in Boyle Heights, Santa Monica, Venice and Brentwood, 80 girls participated tuition free. AT&T and Google were major sponsors along with the philanthropic Saban Family Foundation and Honest Co., which sells eco-friendly goods and is run by actress Jessica Alba.
Saujani said she crafted the program with a project-based curriculum designed to appeal to women.
“They’re problem solvers. And they’re passionate. And they care about humanity. There are so many tech solutions that could solve those things,” she said.
At one graduation ceremony in Boyle Heights, participants showed off apps and websites they had created from scratch in less than two weeks using programming languages such as HTML, CSS, jQuery and JavaScript.
They had business plans, too, and described how they would attract advertisers and sell the apps.
Many of the girls' projects incorporated social services: First Jobs would curate job listings for high schoolers, Chronic Illness Connect would offer a platform for teenagers suffering from chronic ailments to share stories and support, and Global Grind would aim to teach about global warming through games, such as a "Frogger"-like design with penguins.
For Melanie Perez, 15, one of the program’s highlights was collaborating with two others on Global Grind, a project they plan to expand.
“They had the same ambition and the same passion that I have,” said Melanie, who lives in Koreatown and had not studied computer science before. Speaking at the graduation, she delivered half her speech in Spanish for her parents and other families from Latino backgrounds.
“I think it’s very important to have … that environment that pushes you to your max,” she added.
It’s not all coding at Girls Who Code. Networking with women is essential, too.
“We’ve all discussed how sometimes, you’re going to be the only woman in the computer lab,” said coder Mia Hamernik, 16, of Ventura County. “You have to find a way to set up your own network of support to get through that, just so you aren’t pushed out.”
These young women understand the challenges they'll face when they move into the workforce.
Men outnumber women by 4 to 1, at least, in the technical sectors at big tech firms such as Google, Facebook and Apple, according to figures these companies released last year. The latest “diversity reports” don’t show much improvement.
And once women do land jobs, many eventually leave. A Harvard Business Review study found in 2008 that half of highly qualified women working in science, engineering and technology will, eventually, abandon their jobs because of hostile and isolating work environments. An update last year found that these women are 45% more likely than male colleagues to leave their fields.
For Carmen Nava, senior vice president of customer experience at AT&T, the solution could be getting girls committed during high school through programs like Girls Who Code.
“For us, honestly, the hardest thing is finding women in this field,” she said after the Boyle Heights graduation, where she was a speaker. “To expose them to all the joy of making something out of nothing, hopefully will help retain them.”
The girls aren’t spending all their time worrying about the future, though. They’re immersing themselves in code.
“You can look at a piece of code five hours, your eye goes over errors, and you miss a tiny semicolon,” said Wagner. “We’re all supportive in helping each other find that semicolon.”
GOOGLE WANTS TO HELP YOU AVOID THE LINES WITH NEW "POPULAR TIMES" FEATURE
Original Story: wxyz.com
(WXYZ) - No one likes to get stuck in line at their favorite coffee shop or local eatery—and now Google wants to help.
It’s a new feature labeled "popular times"—and the goal is to save you time.
It appears when you do a simple Google search of a restaurant or business on your mobile device. For iOS devices, you can use the Safari app to see the feature. If you have an Android, reports indicate you can find the feature using the Google app.
When you see the spot you're looking for with the address and hours of operation, just click on the "more" button. You’ll then see the "popular times" section.
The section helps users avoid busy times at that place throughout the week. You can scroll through the neat bar graphs to see what the peak hours are day to day.
A spokesperson for Google tells me in an email, "Much like we compute traffic data based on the anonymized aggregated movement of people on the road, we are able to determine relatively how busy a place is."
It’s a pretty neat feature; you can test it out for yourself. It’s just beginning to roll out, so if you can’t see it yet, be patient.
(WXYZ) - No one likes to get stuck in line at their favorite coffee shop or local eatery—and now Google wants to help.
It’s a new feature labeled "popular times"—and the goal is to save you time.
It appears when you do a simple Google search of a restaurant or business on your mobile device. For iOS devices, you can use the Safari app to see the feature. If you have an Android, reports indicate you can find the feature using the Google app.
When you see the spot you're looking for with the address and hours of operation, just click on the "more" button. You’ll then see the "popular times" section.
The section helps users avoid busy times at that place throughout the week. You can scroll through the neat bar graphs to see what the peak hours are day to day.
A spokesperson for Google tells me in an email, "Much like we compute traffic data based on the anonymized aggregated movement of people on the road, we are able to determine relatively how busy a place is."
It’s a pretty neat feature; you can test it out for yourself. It’s just beginning to roll out, so if you can’t see it yet, be patient.
Friday, July 31, 2015
THIS WALL STREET VETERAN IS WHIPPING GOOGLE INTO SHAPE
Original Story: bloomberg.com
Google is known for multicolored bicycles, nap pods, and complimentary meals—and the free-spending ways that come with those perks. Now it wants to be known for something else: financial discipline. To whip the numbers into shape, it’s brought in Ruth Porat, an almost 30-year veteran of Wall Street.
She’s off to a good start. Porat, who joined Google as chief financial officer in May after five years as Morgan Stanley’s CFO, on July 16 unveiled second-quarter earnings and sales that topped analysts’ estimates. Impressed investors sent the shares to a record the next day, adding $65 billion to the company’s market value and more than $4 billion each to the fortunes of co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. An Atlanta securities lawyer is following this story closely.
Shareholders cheered Porat, 57, with her strong finance background, as the right person to help instill more discipline at a company that’s invested in everything from driverless cars to giant barges. Now she must prove she can create efficiency without crimping the creative culture that’s helped Google dominate the online advertising market. “No one really knew her before, because there’s no reason a tech investor would really know her,” says Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray. When she announced the second-quarter results, the idea that a Wall Street hand was whipping Google into shape “kind of went viral,” he says. “This perception of a real, hard-nosed woman who has something to prove—I think that inspires confidence.”
During the second quarter, Google’s operating expenses grew 13 percent from the same period a year ago, the slowest rate since 2013, and declined from the previous quarter. “A key focus is on the levers within our control to manage the pace of expenses while still ensuring and supporting our growth,” Porat said on a call with analysts. Her remarks also left open the possibility of Google returning cash to investors in the form of buybacks or dividends, something Wall Street has been asking about for years. At a companywide meeting following the earnings report, she talked about the importance of disciplined execution at Google even as she thanked employees for their work, according to a person familiar with the remarks. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment. A Boston investment lawyer represents clients in banking matters, project finance and private equity finance.
Porat benefited from the efforts of her predecessor, Patrick Pichette. Google’s increase in expenses started slowing during the first quarter. “Everything was probably already in motion by the time she came along,” says Sameet Sinha, an analyst with B. Riley & Co. Even so, the quarterly numbers seemed to resonate with investors, as did Porat’s résumé. “She comes with a pedigree from Morgan Stanley of doing a good job of enhancing shareholder value over her tenure there,” says Walter Price, co-manager of the AllianzGI Technology Fund, which owns shares of Google.
At Morgan Stanley, Porat helped the bank recover from its near-death experience during the financial crisis and developed a reputation as a cost-cutter who focused on boosting shareholder returns. In 2013 she laid out expense-reduction targets of $1.6 billion and last year gained approval for the bank’s biggest share buyback in four years. This year, the company more than doubled the share repurchase plan. Since the end of 2012, Morgan Stanley stock has climbed from $19 to more than $40. An Encino CPA assists companies with pension and profit-sharing plans.
Porat, a physicist’s daughter who was born in England and grew up in Silicon Valley, is no stranger to technology. As Morgan Stanley’s top Internet banker during the dot-com bubble, she advised clients such as EBay and Amazon.com and made pitches to tech startups considering going public, accompanied by her close friend Mary Meeker, the research analyst who was called “Queen of the Net.” Porat showed a passion for work, quickly diving back in after having each of her three sons and after a battle with breast cancer.
Connecting with Google shareholders will be a priority. After the earnings call, Porat, who traded pantsuits for jeans at Google, planned to begin meetings with investors in cities such as New York and Boston, making the case for Google’s prospects.
Announcing Porat’s hiring in March, Page said she would “invest in a thoughtful, disciplined way in our next generation of big bets.” She received a pay package worth more than $70 million that will vest from this year through 2019, according to a company filing. In her first months on the job, she’s been reviewing programs throughout the company. They include driverless cars, which seek to use technology to take humans out of the process; Project Loon, an effort to deliver Internet connectivity to rural and remote areas via high-altitude balloons; and Google Fiber, its broadband and TV service in select cities, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Some of those initiatives may have to be abandoned. “She might have to go and tell Larry and Sergey, ‘Here are 10 projects, pick five—let’s go with those,’” Sinha says. The Google Fiber project could get a hard look, according to Munster, because it competes with established companies such as Verizon Communications and AT&T that are focused on building and delivering broadband and TV services.
Lifting the share price is crucial for Google, where many employees get much of their compensation in stock and can easily jump to a rival such as Apple. In the year before Porat was named to the job, the shares had fallen 4.5 percent while the Nasdaq Composite Index had climbed 17 percent. “Retention is the biggest challenge,” Munster says.
Google’s issues go beyond cost control. They include a threat to its core business of selling ads next to search results. As consumers access the Web via smartphones instead of desktop PCs, they’re increasingly likely to tap on an app rather than open a browser.
At the same time, Google faces stronger competition in online commerce from Amazon, which is grabbing more users who skip comparison shopping on Google and buy from the retailer. Also, Facebook, growing more quickly than Google, is competing for advertising and is a threat to Google’s YouTube business as it pushes video options to its users. “It was a good quarter, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of the same structural and competitive concerns,” says Ben Schachter, an analyst at Macquarie Securities.
Google is known for multicolored bicycles, nap pods, and complimentary meals—and the free-spending ways that come with those perks. Now it wants to be known for something else: financial discipline. To whip the numbers into shape, it’s brought in Ruth Porat, an almost 30-year veteran of Wall Street.
She’s off to a good start. Porat, who joined Google as chief financial officer in May after five years as Morgan Stanley’s CFO, on July 16 unveiled second-quarter earnings and sales that topped analysts’ estimates. Impressed investors sent the shares to a record the next day, adding $65 billion to the company’s market value and more than $4 billion each to the fortunes of co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. An Atlanta securities lawyer is following this story closely.
Shareholders cheered Porat, 57, with her strong finance background, as the right person to help instill more discipline at a company that’s invested in everything from driverless cars to giant barges. Now she must prove she can create efficiency without crimping the creative culture that’s helped Google dominate the online advertising market. “No one really knew her before, because there’s no reason a tech investor would really know her,” says Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray. When she announced the second-quarter results, the idea that a Wall Street hand was whipping Google into shape “kind of went viral,” he says. “This perception of a real, hard-nosed woman who has something to prove—I think that inspires confidence.”
During the second quarter, Google’s operating expenses grew 13 percent from the same period a year ago, the slowest rate since 2013, and declined from the previous quarter. “A key focus is on the levers within our control to manage the pace of expenses while still ensuring and supporting our growth,” Porat said on a call with analysts. Her remarks also left open the possibility of Google returning cash to investors in the form of buybacks or dividends, something Wall Street has been asking about for years. At a companywide meeting following the earnings report, she talked about the importance of disciplined execution at Google even as she thanked employees for their work, according to a person familiar with the remarks. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment. A Boston investment lawyer represents clients in banking matters, project finance and private equity finance.
Porat benefited from the efforts of her predecessor, Patrick Pichette. Google’s increase in expenses started slowing during the first quarter. “Everything was probably already in motion by the time she came along,” says Sameet Sinha, an analyst with B. Riley & Co. Even so, the quarterly numbers seemed to resonate with investors, as did Porat’s résumé. “She comes with a pedigree from Morgan Stanley of doing a good job of enhancing shareholder value over her tenure there,” says Walter Price, co-manager of the AllianzGI Technology Fund, which owns shares of Google.
At Morgan Stanley, Porat helped the bank recover from its near-death experience during the financial crisis and developed a reputation as a cost-cutter who focused on boosting shareholder returns. In 2013 she laid out expense-reduction targets of $1.6 billion and last year gained approval for the bank’s biggest share buyback in four years. This year, the company more than doubled the share repurchase plan. Since the end of 2012, Morgan Stanley stock has climbed from $19 to more than $40. An Encino CPA assists companies with pension and profit-sharing plans.
Porat, a physicist’s daughter who was born in England and grew up in Silicon Valley, is no stranger to technology. As Morgan Stanley’s top Internet banker during the dot-com bubble, she advised clients such as EBay and Amazon.com and made pitches to tech startups considering going public, accompanied by her close friend Mary Meeker, the research analyst who was called “Queen of the Net.” Porat showed a passion for work, quickly diving back in after having each of her three sons and after a battle with breast cancer.
Connecting with Google shareholders will be a priority. After the earnings call, Porat, who traded pantsuits for jeans at Google, planned to begin meetings with investors in cities such as New York and Boston, making the case for Google’s prospects.
Announcing Porat’s hiring in March, Page said she would “invest in a thoughtful, disciplined way in our next generation of big bets.” She received a pay package worth more than $70 million that will vest from this year through 2019, according to a company filing. In her first months on the job, she’s been reviewing programs throughout the company. They include driverless cars, which seek to use technology to take humans out of the process; Project Loon, an effort to deliver Internet connectivity to rural and remote areas via high-altitude balloons; and Google Fiber, its broadband and TV service in select cities, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Some of those initiatives may have to be abandoned. “She might have to go and tell Larry and Sergey, ‘Here are 10 projects, pick five—let’s go with those,’” Sinha says. The Google Fiber project could get a hard look, according to Munster, because it competes with established companies such as Verizon Communications and AT&T that are focused on building and delivering broadband and TV services.
Lifting the share price is crucial for Google, where many employees get much of their compensation in stock and can easily jump to a rival such as Apple. In the year before Porat was named to the job, the shares had fallen 4.5 percent while the Nasdaq Composite Index had climbed 17 percent. “Retention is the biggest challenge,” Munster says.
Google’s issues go beyond cost control. They include a threat to its core business of selling ads next to search results. As consumers access the Web via smartphones instead of desktop PCs, they’re increasingly likely to tap on an app rather than open a browser.
At the same time, Google faces stronger competition in online commerce from Amazon, which is grabbing more users who skip comparison shopping on Google and buy from the retailer. Also, Facebook, growing more quickly than Google, is competing for advertising and is a threat to Google’s YouTube business as it pushes video options to its users. “It was a good quarter, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of the same structural and competitive concerns,” says Ben Schachter, an analyst at Macquarie Securities.
THIRTEEN MONTHS OF WORKING, EATING, AND SLEEPING AT THE GOOGLEPLEX
Original Story: bloomberg.com
Giving up the house key makes it brave. Anyone can sleep in the office for a night, a few nights, even most of the time. But to remove the option of escaping the office entirely—that’s what makes it heroic in Silicon Valley. And Matthew Weaver is always ready to be a hero.
Like, for instance, when U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald came recruiting last year for coders willing to provide their services to their country, promising that his hires could create their own titles. Weaver took the job and then told his new boss, “Bob, this is the part where I hold you to your word.” Weaver is now Rogue Leader of the Digital Service for Veterans Affairs.
Or there’s the time in 2005, when Weaver, then a 27-year-old “site ecologist” at Google, decided on a friend’s dare to do away with his 90-minute commute by living out of an RV in the Google parking lot. Other Googlers had been known to sleep on-site for a few days or weeks. To win the dare, Weaver had to last a full year. He did, and his record stood for about five years. Then Ben Discoe, another programmer, arrived at Google knowing nothing of Weaver’s feat. “An RV” Discoe says when asked about it recently. “That’s cheating.”
In Silicon Valley mythology, sleeping at the office is second only to working out of a garage. According to a new biography by Bloomberg Businessweek staff writer Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk dozed on a deskside beanbag at one of his startups and showered at a YMCA, where he kept a change of clothes in a locker. Like many tech founders, Box Chief Executive Officer Aaron Levie worked out of his home, hiring people to work there until home wasn’t big enough. When the company moved to a bigger office, he took his bed. “I don’t think there was any downside,” he says. “I don’t think in any circumstance I would have been able to date anybody anyway, being pretty uncool and working all the time.”
While it makes sense for a founder to work where he lives, then live where he works, it’s a little different for software programmers, for whom giving up the key is less about devotion to a company than the quality of their code. “All of Silicon Valley is based on character defects that are rewarded uniquely in this system,” says Po Bronson, the author of The Nudist on the Late Shift, his 1999 study of Valley social mores, which included a photo of Yahoo! co-founder David Filo curled up in a sleeping bag beneath his desk after he was already a billionaire. “The utilitarian mind that gets them to code and think about things logically would say, ‘What’s the difference between sleeping on a bed and sleeping on a carpet? This is just a realm of convention.’”
When Weaver broke with convention, he bought a 24-foot 1995 Safari Roadtrek RV and parked it in Google’s lot, next to a building named Pi. He put some AstroTurf outside his door, surrounded it with a white picket fence, and invited co-workers to hibachi barbecues and regular Thursday evening cocktails. He ate the free Google meals, used the Google bathrooms, and showered in the Google gym.
Weaver got friendly with security. He dated when he was out of town. Sure, there were challenges. It turns out that RVs aren’t very insulated against cold and rain, the way most homes are. And it gets colder in Mountain View, Calif., than he expected. “Every exterior surface was a place where condensation happened,” he says. “Every wall, every window—they would all be coated in running moisture.” But minor inconveniences weren’t going to get between an engineer and his dream. “For a few months, I kept all my clothes in sealable plastic boxes and rotated a set of desiccants from the office,” he says. “You know, those silica ‘do not eat’ packages?” Weaver made it 54 weeks before finally moving to an apartment. (Google declined to comment for this article.)
Discoe, 44, lived at Google for 56 weeks, from October 2011 to November 2012. He has a long gray ponytail and clear blue eyes and is wearing an old T-shirt from the 1990s, back when he threw a lot of raves. He barely glances at the cocktail menu of an Oakland restaurant called Hopscotch before choosing an ectoplasm. He can’t resist the Ghostbusters reference.
In the interest of efficiency, he hands me his Samsung smartphone to save time describing himself. On the cracked screen, there’s a comic strip about how your favorite type of map reveals your personality. Discoe is a hard-core fan of the Dymaxion Map—Buckminster Fuller’s way of flattening the globe into a 20-sided mess that shows the earth’s landmass contiguously. The cartoon caption reads: “You like Isaac Asimov, XML, and shoes with toes. You think the Segway got a bad rap. You own 3D goggles, which you use to view rotating models of better 3D goggles. You type in Dvorak.”
Discoe points at the screen. “When I read this, I was like, ‘Does he know me?’ There’s only really me who fits this description. All my other socks are toe socks,” he says, excusing the regular socks he’s wearing with flip-flops. “I need to do laundry.”
In 2011, Discoe was newly divorced. The paradise he had planned with his wife when they moved from Manhattan to rural Ahualoa, Hawaii, to raise children in the same house he grew up in, fell apart before the kids came. He had alimony and a mortgage on the Hawaiian farm and had recently moved to the Bay Area to take a job at 510 Systems, working on a driverless car. (Discoe found that ironic, since as a resolute environmentalist he loathed cars and always biked to work.) In 2011 employees voted on whether to let Google buy the company. “My vote was to get bought by Google,” he says. “That’s like winning the freaking lottery.”
The only problem with the lottery win was that it meant paying rent in the South Bay. Sure, even paying alimony, he could afford a $2,000 apartment; he was earning a salary of $135,000. It just didn’t seem logical. “Only a fool would pay rent in the Bay Area,” he says. “People are curiously inflexible and locked into their programming. They want respect from their peers and to be considered normal. I never sought those things.” He picks up a handful of shredded, fried sweet potato with his hand and stuffs it into his mouth.
Looking back, Discoe’s childhood could be said to have prepared him to live out of a vehicle. His parents, in their second marriage of four apiece, met in Berkeley and got involved in Zen. His dad became a Buddhist priest and moved the family to the Hawaiian countryside. After the divorce, both of his parents moved back to Northern California; when he was 7, he moved again to Hawaii. He was one of the only white kids, and by far the nerdiest. It was so socially uncomfortable he persuaded his mom to home-school him. Then, when he was 10, his dad gained custody and moved him to Mill Valley, Calif. In Discoe’s online bio, he writes that his years in Mill Valley were a time of “total alienation at school for being smart, long sickening school bus trips and general, all-around misery.” He moved back to Hawaii for the last three years of high school, and it wasn’t any better. He got into Caltech based on the programs he had written but dropped out after two years, unable to keep up after a lifetime of not focusing on school.
When you move that much, immerse yourself that deeply in computer coding, and are raised Zen, you don’t care about possessions. For a long time, Discoe owned one pair of shoes. When he became a Google employee and rejected the idea of getting an apartment, he realized that all his stuff could fit quite easily in a van. He went on Craigslist and paid $1,800 for a white 1990 GMC Vandura.
Google’s internal Wiki, now defunct, had an entry on “Living at Google.” Like a few of the people who offered tips on the page, Discoe put a twin mattress in the back of the van, sawed 2 inches off an Ikea frame, and built some shelves underneath it. The Vandura was a “burner van” that had taken many trips to Burning Man and had been custom-fit with handmade green curtains, wood panels, and blue velour. It never moved from its parking space. “The thing is a V8. I’d shred my environmental credentials if I drove it,” Discoe says.
He not only ate free but also as healthily as he ever had, preferring Google’s Café 150, which sources all of its organic ingredients within 150 miles. “If you’re bored of Google food, just move on to another restaurant,” he says of the 25 places to eat on campus. “It was awesome.” He charged his phone, tablet, and laptop in the office. If he needed the bathroom in the middle of the night, he would badge back into the building. Other than his mobile phone bill, Clipper card for public transportation, and laundry service, his living expenses were close to zero.
Unlike Weaver, Discoe didn’t invite people to barbecues or cocktail hours. He parked by Permanente Creek, which runs through the Googleplex, and the few people at work who found out about it would always break into the same impression of Chris Farley as a motivational speaker on Saturday Night Live: “I am 35 years old! I am divorced! And I live in a van down by the river!”
It wasn’t the happiest existence, especially when Discoe thought of Hawaii. “I was sad, missing my home and my community and my chickens and my tea,” he says. “Being in a corporate parking lot far from my home is sad that way. I could talk for hours about my chickens. The sustainable future of humanity is not possible without chickens.”
Discoe kept his van life up through the cold winter to save money to pay off his farm and retire early, which he’s on track to do next year. His farm, he believes, is one of the few places that will be fine when the environmental dystopia slowly arrives. “It was all about being able to afford a place for my grandchildren,” he says about avoiding rent. The irony is that it was hard to find a woman who wanted to have kids with a guy who slept in a van.
He didn’t mention living in a parking lot in his OKCupid profile, though he worked in the fact that he owned a farm in Hawaii. “You mention the van on the third date, once there’s an emotional buy-in,” he says. He always waited until after he dropped the “G-bomb” about his employer. “My little running joke was, ‘I keep a little place, close to work.’” When dates went well, he went to their place. Almost always. “One girl wanted to make out—not full sex but just make out,” he says. “The bed groaned. It was not really meant for two people.”
Google wasn’t the first office where Discoe slept. When he worked at Intel’s graphics workshop lab in 1997, he laid some cardboard down on the floor of his cubicle, put some silk around the bottom, hung a disco ball, put one of those soothing Zen water fountains on top, and slept in a sleeping bag. He stayed at his girlfriend’s house a lot and even got her to come to “his place,” though they didn’t have sex. “She was a pretty cool raver girlfriend to be even down with sleeping there,” he says.
In 2012, when Google transferred Discoe to a job he found boring, he left, landing at Leica Geosystems, in San Ramon, Calif., where he works in mapping. Even without the company’s infrastructure, he continued to live in his van, parking outside the Hacker Dojo—a giant co-working space in Mountain View with cheap membership that Discoe calls “a halfway house for overqualified geeks.” There were four other coders sleeping in vans in the parking lot.
“Finally,” Discoe says, “I wasn’t alone.”
When he did get a long-term girlfriend, she made him move to an apartment, which he wasn’t happy about. “Two freaking thousand dollars to rent basically a basement in the Mission District. Freaking insane,” he says. “She never even went there. We broke up.”
He has another girlfriend now, one he hopes will move with him to Hawaii and make babies and help him sell the tea he grows himself and roasts in his mom’s wok. They live together in a place with four walls in Oakland, though he still has the van. As our dinner wraps up, Discoe ties his hair back into a ponytail and leaves to go meet his girlfriend at San Francisco International Airport. She’s been gone for two weeks. “I’ve had no reason to come home after work,” he says. “So I’ve been sleeping in the van.”
Living entirely inside the Google office building can’t be done, he says. “There’s no comfort or privacy, and the vacuum cleaner comes at 2 a.m. Those Google nap pods are a joke. It’s an awkward bench with a cone over your head. It couldn’t hold a candle to the van.”
But on Quora, the online forum for specialist knowledge, a senior engineer boasts of having indeed lived inside Google for more than a year. Overlapping with the period Discoe was by the creek in his van, the poster claims to have spent 13 months sleeping in a combination of nap pods, beanbags, meditation rooms, massage rooms, and every windowless conference room with a sofa. The engineer wishes to remain anonymous.
Giving up the house key makes it brave. Anyone can sleep in the office for a night, a few nights, even most of the time. But to remove the option of escaping the office entirely—that’s what makes it heroic in Silicon Valley. And Matthew Weaver is always ready to be a hero.
Like, for instance, when U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald came recruiting last year for coders willing to provide their services to their country, promising that his hires could create their own titles. Weaver took the job and then told his new boss, “Bob, this is the part where I hold you to your word.” Weaver is now Rogue Leader of the Digital Service for Veterans Affairs.
Or there’s the time in 2005, when Weaver, then a 27-year-old “site ecologist” at Google, decided on a friend’s dare to do away with his 90-minute commute by living out of an RV in the Google parking lot. Other Googlers had been known to sleep on-site for a few days or weeks. To win the dare, Weaver had to last a full year. He did, and his record stood for about five years. Then Ben Discoe, another programmer, arrived at Google knowing nothing of Weaver’s feat. “An RV” Discoe says when asked about it recently. “That’s cheating.”
In Silicon Valley mythology, sleeping at the office is second only to working out of a garage. According to a new biography by Bloomberg Businessweek staff writer Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk dozed on a deskside beanbag at one of his startups and showered at a YMCA, where he kept a change of clothes in a locker. Like many tech founders, Box Chief Executive Officer Aaron Levie worked out of his home, hiring people to work there until home wasn’t big enough. When the company moved to a bigger office, he took his bed. “I don’t think there was any downside,” he says. “I don’t think in any circumstance I would have been able to date anybody anyway, being pretty uncool and working all the time.”
While it makes sense for a founder to work where he lives, then live where he works, it’s a little different for software programmers, for whom giving up the key is less about devotion to a company than the quality of their code. “All of Silicon Valley is based on character defects that are rewarded uniquely in this system,” says Po Bronson, the author of The Nudist on the Late Shift, his 1999 study of Valley social mores, which included a photo of Yahoo! co-founder David Filo curled up in a sleeping bag beneath his desk after he was already a billionaire. “The utilitarian mind that gets them to code and think about things logically would say, ‘What’s the difference between sleeping on a bed and sleeping on a carpet? This is just a realm of convention.’”
When Weaver broke with convention, he bought a 24-foot 1995 Safari Roadtrek RV and parked it in Google’s lot, next to a building named Pi. He put some AstroTurf outside his door, surrounded it with a white picket fence, and invited co-workers to hibachi barbecues and regular Thursday evening cocktails. He ate the free Google meals, used the Google bathrooms, and showered in the Google gym.
Weaver got friendly with security. He dated when he was out of town. Sure, there were challenges. It turns out that RVs aren’t very insulated against cold and rain, the way most homes are. And it gets colder in Mountain View, Calif., than he expected. “Every exterior surface was a place where condensation happened,” he says. “Every wall, every window—they would all be coated in running moisture.” But minor inconveniences weren’t going to get between an engineer and his dream. “For a few months, I kept all my clothes in sealable plastic boxes and rotated a set of desiccants from the office,” he says. “You know, those silica ‘do not eat’ packages?” Weaver made it 54 weeks before finally moving to an apartment. (Google declined to comment for this article.)
Discoe, 44, lived at Google for 56 weeks, from October 2011 to November 2012. He has a long gray ponytail and clear blue eyes and is wearing an old T-shirt from the 1990s, back when he threw a lot of raves. He barely glances at the cocktail menu of an Oakland restaurant called Hopscotch before choosing an ectoplasm. He can’t resist the Ghostbusters reference.
In the interest of efficiency, he hands me his Samsung smartphone to save time describing himself. On the cracked screen, there’s a comic strip about how your favorite type of map reveals your personality. Discoe is a hard-core fan of the Dymaxion Map—Buckminster Fuller’s way of flattening the globe into a 20-sided mess that shows the earth’s landmass contiguously. The cartoon caption reads: “You like Isaac Asimov, XML, and shoes with toes. You think the Segway got a bad rap. You own 3D goggles, which you use to view rotating models of better 3D goggles. You type in Dvorak.”
Discoe points at the screen. “When I read this, I was like, ‘Does he know me?’ There’s only really me who fits this description. All my other socks are toe socks,” he says, excusing the regular socks he’s wearing with flip-flops. “I need to do laundry.”
In 2011, Discoe was newly divorced. The paradise he had planned with his wife when they moved from Manhattan to rural Ahualoa, Hawaii, to raise children in the same house he grew up in, fell apart before the kids came. He had alimony and a mortgage on the Hawaiian farm and had recently moved to the Bay Area to take a job at 510 Systems, working on a driverless car. (Discoe found that ironic, since as a resolute environmentalist he loathed cars and always biked to work.) In 2011 employees voted on whether to let Google buy the company. “My vote was to get bought by Google,” he says. “That’s like winning the freaking lottery.”
The only problem with the lottery win was that it meant paying rent in the South Bay. Sure, even paying alimony, he could afford a $2,000 apartment; he was earning a salary of $135,000. It just didn’t seem logical. “Only a fool would pay rent in the Bay Area,” he says. “People are curiously inflexible and locked into their programming. They want respect from their peers and to be considered normal. I never sought those things.” He picks up a handful of shredded, fried sweet potato with his hand and stuffs it into his mouth.
Looking back, Discoe’s childhood could be said to have prepared him to live out of a vehicle. His parents, in their second marriage of four apiece, met in Berkeley and got involved in Zen. His dad became a Buddhist priest and moved the family to the Hawaiian countryside. After the divorce, both of his parents moved back to Northern California; when he was 7, he moved again to Hawaii. He was one of the only white kids, and by far the nerdiest. It was so socially uncomfortable he persuaded his mom to home-school him. Then, when he was 10, his dad gained custody and moved him to Mill Valley, Calif. In Discoe’s online bio, he writes that his years in Mill Valley were a time of “total alienation at school for being smart, long sickening school bus trips and general, all-around misery.” He moved back to Hawaii for the last three years of high school, and it wasn’t any better. He got into Caltech based on the programs he had written but dropped out after two years, unable to keep up after a lifetime of not focusing on school.
When you move that much, immerse yourself that deeply in computer coding, and are raised Zen, you don’t care about possessions. For a long time, Discoe owned one pair of shoes. When he became a Google employee and rejected the idea of getting an apartment, he realized that all his stuff could fit quite easily in a van. He went on Craigslist and paid $1,800 for a white 1990 GMC Vandura.
Google’s internal Wiki, now defunct, had an entry on “Living at Google.” Like a few of the people who offered tips on the page, Discoe put a twin mattress in the back of the van, sawed 2 inches off an Ikea frame, and built some shelves underneath it. The Vandura was a “burner van” that had taken many trips to Burning Man and had been custom-fit with handmade green curtains, wood panels, and blue velour. It never moved from its parking space. “The thing is a V8. I’d shred my environmental credentials if I drove it,” Discoe says.
He not only ate free but also as healthily as he ever had, preferring Google’s Café 150, which sources all of its organic ingredients within 150 miles. “If you’re bored of Google food, just move on to another restaurant,” he says of the 25 places to eat on campus. “It was awesome.” He charged his phone, tablet, and laptop in the office. If he needed the bathroom in the middle of the night, he would badge back into the building. Other than his mobile phone bill, Clipper card for public transportation, and laundry service, his living expenses were close to zero.
Unlike Weaver, Discoe didn’t invite people to barbecues or cocktail hours. He parked by Permanente Creek, which runs through the Googleplex, and the few people at work who found out about it would always break into the same impression of Chris Farley as a motivational speaker on Saturday Night Live: “I am 35 years old! I am divorced! And I live in a van down by the river!”
It wasn’t the happiest existence, especially when Discoe thought of Hawaii. “I was sad, missing my home and my community and my chickens and my tea,” he says. “Being in a corporate parking lot far from my home is sad that way. I could talk for hours about my chickens. The sustainable future of humanity is not possible without chickens.”
Discoe kept his van life up through the cold winter to save money to pay off his farm and retire early, which he’s on track to do next year. His farm, he believes, is one of the few places that will be fine when the environmental dystopia slowly arrives. “It was all about being able to afford a place for my grandchildren,” he says about avoiding rent. The irony is that it was hard to find a woman who wanted to have kids with a guy who slept in a van.
He didn’t mention living in a parking lot in his OKCupid profile, though he worked in the fact that he owned a farm in Hawaii. “You mention the van on the third date, once there’s an emotional buy-in,” he says. He always waited until after he dropped the “G-bomb” about his employer. “My little running joke was, ‘I keep a little place, close to work.’” When dates went well, he went to their place. Almost always. “One girl wanted to make out—not full sex but just make out,” he says. “The bed groaned. It was not really meant for two people.”
Google wasn’t the first office where Discoe slept. When he worked at Intel’s graphics workshop lab in 1997, he laid some cardboard down on the floor of his cubicle, put some silk around the bottom, hung a disco ball, put one of those soothing Zen water fountains on top, and slept in a sleeping bag. He stayed at his girlfriend’s house a lot and even got her to come to “his place,” though they didn’t have sex. “She was a pretty cool raver girlfriend to be even down with sleeping there,” he says.
In 2012, when Google transferred Discoe to a job he found boring, he left, landing at Leica Geosystems, in San Ramon, Calif., where he works in mapping. Even without the company’s infrastructure, he continued to live in his van, parking outside the Hacker Dojo—a giant co-working space in Mountain View with cheap membership that Discoe calls “a halfway house for overqualified geeks.” There were four other coders sleeping in vans in the parking lot.
“Finally,” Discoe says, “I wasn’t alone.”
When he did get a long-term girlfriend, she made him move to an apartment, which he wasn’t happy about. “Two freaking thousand dollars to rent basically a basement in the Mission District. Freaking insane,” he says. “She never even went there. We broke up.”
He has another girlfriend now, one he hopes will move with him to Hawaii and make babies and help him sell the tea he grows himself and roasts in his mom’s wok. They live together in a place with four walls in Oakland, though he still has the van. As our dinner wraps up, Discoe ties his hair back into a ponytail and leaves to go meet his girlfriend at San Francisco International Airport. She’s been gone for two weeks. “I’ve had no reason to come home after work,” he says. “So I’ve been sleeping in the van.”
Living entirely inside the Google office building can’t be done, he says. “There’s no comfort or privacy, and the vacuum cleaner comes at 2 a.m. Those Google nap pods are a joke. It’s an awkward bench with a cone over your head. It couldn’t hold a candle to the van.”
But on Quora, the online forum for specialist knowledge, a senior engineer boasts of having indeed lived inside Google for more than a year. Overlapping with the period Discoe was by the creek in his van, the poster claims to have spent 13 months sleeping in a combination of nap pods, beanbags, meditation rooms, massage rooms, and every windowless conference room with a sofa. The engineer wishes to remain anonymous.
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
MARKETING FIRM HEADING TO SOUTHFIELD, ADDING 50 JOBS
Original Story: freep.com
Digital marketing firm, HelloWorld, is moving its headquarters from Pleasant Ridge to Southfield in October -- and plans to hire about 50 new workers.
“We're looking forward to HelloWorld's new office space in Southfield,” Jen Gray, senior vice president of brand, marketing and creative Services at HelloWorld, said today. “The ever-growing technology sector in metro Detroit is well served by the amenities on and near the Town Center campus.” Trade show displays allow your company brand and marketing message to stand out from the competition.
It is set to move to 43,500 square feet that is now vacant on the 19th-21st floors of 3000 Town Center.
The firm, formerly known as ePrize, creates promotional campaigns and loyalty programs. It also has offices in Detroit, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Nashville, Phoenix and Seattle. Brands it works with include: Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Gap and Procter & Gamble. A San Francisco business lawyer provides professional legal counsel and extensive experience in many aspects of business law.
The company said it will relocate about 300 workers, and add about 50 new full-time positions.
Founded in 1999 in Bloomfield Hills, the company had a 10-year lease in Pleasant Ridge that expires this year.
As part of its deal, the company said, it plans to invest nearly $6.5 million into the space, about $6 million of which will be in information technology, furniture and fixtures.
CEO Peter DeNunzio had said earlier this year that the firm was attracted to the center's amenities. It has restaurants and retailers and is next to a Westin hotel. A Rochester small business lawyer offers legal consulting specifically designed to stop legal problems from developing before they start.
To entice the business to move to Southfield, the city offered a property abatement for the next 10 years.
“The city of Southfield continues to attract new businesses because we offer competitive advantages that other cities don’t,” said Rochelle Freeman, Southfield's business and economic development director . “From our central location to our solid infrastructure and diverse mix of industries -- Southfield remains the business hub in Michigan."
Digital marketing firm, HelloWorld, is moving its headquarters from Pleasant Ridge to Southfield in October -- and plans to hire about 50 new workers.
“We're looking forward to HelloWorld's new office space in Southfield,” Jen Gray, senior vice president of brand, marketing and creative Services at HelloWorld, said today. “The ever-growing technology sector in metro Detroit is well served by the amenities on and near the Town Center campus.” Trade show displays allow your company brand and marketing message to stand out from the competition.
It is set to move to 43,500 square feet that is now vacant on the 19th-21st floors of 3000 Town Center.
The firm, formerly known as ePrize, creates promotional campaigns and loyalty programs. It also has offices in Detroit, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Nashville, Phoenix and Seattle. Brands it works with include: Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Gap and Procter & Gamble. A San Francisco business lawyer provides professional legal counsel and extensive experience in many aspects of business law.
The company said it will relocate about 300 workers, and add about 50 new full-time positions.
Founded in 1999 in Bloomfield Hills, the company had a 10-year lease in Pleasant Ridge that expires this year.
As part of its deal, the company said, it plans to invest nearly $6.5 million into the space, about $6 million of which will be in information technology, furniture and fixtures.
CEO Peter DeNunzio had said earlier this year that the firm was attracted to the center's amenities. It has restaurants and retailers and is next to a Westin hotel. A Rochester small business lawyer offers legal consulting specifically designed to stop legal problems from developing before they start.
To entice the business to move to Southfield, the city offered a property abatement for the next 10 years.
“The city of Southfield continues to attract new businesses because we offer competitive advantages that other cities don’t,” said Rochelle Freeman, Southfield's business and economic development director . “From our central location to our solid infrastructure and diverse mix of industries -- Southfield remains the business hub in Michigan."
Friday, June 26, 2015
IAC PLANS TO TAKE ITS DATING BUSINESSES MATCH.COM AND TINDER PUBLIC
Original Story: latimes.com
The parent company that owns dating brands Tinder, Match.com and OKCupid wants to play the field.
IAC/InterActiveCorp said Thursday it’s planning an initial public offering for its online dating business, The Match Group.
FOR THE RECORD
An earlier version of this post carried an incorrect headline that said IAC was spinning off its dating business. A San Francisco M&A attorney represents clients in company mergers.
IAC expects to issue less than 20% of its common stock in the offering, which could be completed during the fourth quarter of this year, IAC said in a release.
The Match Group consists of 50 brands and grew 11% last year to reach revenues of $897 million. The company as a whole grew 3% during the same period.
“With the transaction, [The Match Group] will be able to unlock value, a topic that has been in the forefront with the dating business for the last 2-3 years,” John Blackledge, an analyst at Cowen and Co., wrote in a note to clients. “Match is a market leader in a growing category and should have solid currency with investors.”
Greg Blatt, chairman of The Match Group, said the marriage of established brands with up-and-coming ones would help the company expand. Organic search engine optimization acts as an endorsement of your company, products, and services and also helps alter the mindset of keyword searchers making them more inquisitive as to the content on your website.
“The Match Group is poised for substantial growth in the coming years,” Blatt said. “The dating industry has come a long way since its inception, but the category remains underpenetrated. We believe the combination of our more established businesses such as Match, Meetic and OurTime, and earlier stage businesses such as Tinder and OKCupid, creates an attractive combination of significant cash flow generation, strong margins and meaningful growth potential.”
Among the hottest companies in the group is West Hollywood’s Tinder, a hook-up app that recently hit 8 billion matches, according to company founder Sean Rad.
The company launched a premium service in March in hopes of converting millions of users into paid subscribers. Known as Tinder Plus, the feature allows users to “rewind” if they accidentally reject a potential date.
The New York-based IAC is run by media mogul Barry Diller. The company also owns Internet brands such as Vimeo, College Humor and About.com. A Los Angeles M&A lawyer is following this story closely.
IAC also announced Thursday that Chief Financial Officer Jeff Kip was resigning to spend more time with his family and pursue other interests.
The parent company that owns dating brands Tinder, Match.com and OKCupid wants to play the field.
IAC/InterActiveCorp said Thursday it’s planning an initial public offering for its online dating business, The Match Group.
FOR THE RECORD
An earlier version of this post carried an incorrect headline that said IAC was spinning off its dating business. A San Francisco M&A attorney represents clients in company mergers.
IAC expects to issue less than 20% of its common stock in the offering, which could be completed during the fourth quarter of this year, IAC said in a release.
The Match Group consists of 50 brands and grew 11% last year to reach revenues of $897 million. The company as a whole grew 3% during the same period.
“With the transaction, [The Match Group] will be able to unlock value, a topic that has been in the forefront with the dating business for the last 2-3 years,” John Blackledge, an analyst at Cowen and Co., wrote in a note to clients. “Match is a market leader in a growing category and should have solid currency with investors.”
Greg Blatt, chairman of The Match Group, said the marriage of established brands with up-and-coming ones would help the company expand. Organic search engine optimization acts as an endorsement of your company, products, and services and also helps alter the mindset of keyword searchers making them more inquisitive as to the content on your website.
“The Match Group is poised for substantial growth in the coming years,” Blatt said. “The dating industry has come a long way since its inception, but the category remains underpenetrated. We believe the combination of our more established businesses such as Match, Meetic and OurTime, and earlier stage businesses such as Tinder and OKCupid, creates an attractive combination of significant cash flow generation, strong margins and meaningful growth potential.”
Among the hottest companies in the group is West Hollywood’s Tinder, a hook-up app that recently hit 8 billion matches, according to company founder Sean Rad.
The company launched a premium service in March in hopes of converting millions of users into paid subscribers. Known as Tinder Plus, the feature allows users to “rewind” if they accidentally reject a potential date.
The New York-based IAC is run by media mogul Barry Diller. The company also owns Internet brands such as Vimeo, College Humor and About.com. A Los Angeles M&A lawyer is following this story closely.
IAC also announced Thursday that Chief Financial Officer Jeff Kip was resigning to spend more time with his family and pursue other interests.
Tuesday, June 09, 2015
THE INTERNET OF THINGS IS FAR BIGGER THAN ANYONE REALIZES
Original Story: wired.com
WHEN PEOPLE TALK about “the next big thing,” they’re never thinking big enough. It’s not a lack of imagination; it’s a lack of observation. I’ve maintained that the future is always within sight, and you don’t need to imagine what’s already there.
Case in point: The buzz surrounding the Internet of Things.
What’s the buzz? The Internet of Things revolves around increased machine-to-machine communication; it’s built on cloud computing and networks of data-gathering sensors; it’s mobile, virtual, and instantaneous connection; and they say it’s going to make everything in our lives from streetlights to seaports “smart.”
But here’s what I mean when I say people don’t think big enough. So much of the chatter has been focused on machine-to-machine communication (M2M): devices talking to like devices. But a machine is an instrument, it’s a tool, it’s something that’s physically doing something. When we talk about making machines “smart,” we’re not referring strictly to M2M. We’re talking about sensors.
A sensor is not a machine. It doesn’t do anything in the same sense that a machine does. It measures, it evaluates; in short, it gathers data. The Internet of Things really comes together with the connection of sensors and machines. That is to say, the real value that the Internet of Things creates is at the intersection of gathering data and leveraging it. All the information gathered by all the sensors in the world isn’t worth very much if there isn’t an infrastructure in place to analyze it in real time.
Cloud-based applications are the key to using leveraged data. The Internet of Things doesn’t function without cloud-based applications to interpret and transmit the data coming from all these sensors. The cloud is what enables the apps to go to work for you anytime, anywhere.
Let’s look at one example. In 2007, a bridge collapsed in Minnesota, killing many people, because of steel plates that were inadequate to handle the bridge’s load. When we rebuild bridges, we can use smart cement: cement equipped with sensors to monitor stresses, cracks, and warpages. This is cement that alerts us to fix problems before they cause a catastrophe. And these technologies aren’t limited to the bridge’s structure.
If there’s ice on the bridge, the same sensors in the concrete will detect it and communicate the information via the wireless internet to your car. Once your car knows there’s a hazard ahead, it will instruct the driver to slow down, and if the driver doesn’t, then the car will slow down for him. This is just one of the ways that sensor-to-machine and machine-to-machine communication can take place. Sensors on the bridge connect to machines in the car: we turn information into action.
You might start to see the implications here. What can you achieve when a smart car and a smart city grid start talking to each other? We’re going to have traffic flow optimization, because instead of just having stoplights on fixed timers, we’ll have smart stoplights that can respond to changes in traffic flow. Traffic and street conditions will be communicated to drivers, rerouting them around areas that are congested, snowed-in, or tied up in construction.
So now we have sensors monitoring and tracking all sorts of data; we have cloud-based apps translating that data into useful intelligence and transmitting it to machines on the ground, enabling mobile, real-time responses. And thus bridges become smart bridges, and cars smart cars. And soon, we have smart cities, and….
Okay. What are the advantages here? What are the savings? What industries can this be applied to?
Here’s what I mean when I say people never think big enough. This isn’t just about money savings. It’s not about bridges, and it’s not about cities. This is a huge and fundamental shift. When we start making things intelligent, it’s going to be a major engine for creating new products and new services.
Of all the technology trends that are taking place right now, perhaps the biggest one is the Internet of Things; it’s the one that’s going to give us the most disruption as well as the most opportunity over the next five years. In my next post in this two-part series, we’ll explore just how big this is going to be.
WHEN PEOPLE TALK about “the next big thing,” they’re never thinking big enough. It’s not a lack of imagination; it’s a lack of observation. I’ve maintained that the future is always within sight, and you don’t need to imagine what’s already there.
Case in point: The buzz surrounding the Internet of Things.
What’s the buzz? The Internet of Things revolves around increased machine-to-machine communication; it’s built on cloud computing and networks of data-gathering sensors; it’s mobile, virtual, and instantaneous connection; and they say it’s going to make everything in our lives from streetlights to seaports “smart.”
But here’s what I mean when I say people don’t think big enough. So much of the chatter has been focused on machine-to-machine communication (M2M): devices talking to like devices. But a machine is an instrument, it’s a tool, it’s something that’s physically doing something. When we talk about making machines “smart,” we’re not referring strictly to M2M. We’re talking about sensors.
A sensor is not a machine. It doesn’t do anything in the same sense that a machine does. It measures, it evaluates; in short, it gathers data. The Internet of Things really comes together with the connection of sensors and machines. That is to say, the real value that the Internet of Things creates is at the intersection of gathering data and leveraging it. All the information gathered by all the sensors in the world isn’t worth very much if there isn’t an infrastructure in place to analyze it in real time.
Cloud-based applications are the key to using leveraged data. The Internet of Things doesn’t function without cloud-based applications to interpret and transmit the data coming from all these sensors. The cloud is what enables the apps to go to work for you anytime, anywhere.
Let’s look at one example. In 2007, a bridge collapsed in Minnesota, killing many people, because of steel plates that were inadequate to handle the bridge’s load. When we rebuild bridges, we can use smart cement: cement equipped with sensors to monitor stresses, cracks, and warpages. This is cement that alerts us to fix problems before they cause a catastrophe. And these technologies aren’t limited to the bridge’s structure.
If there’s ice on the bridge, the same sensors in the concrete will detect it and communicate the information via the wireless internet to your car. Once your car knows there’s a hazard ahead, it will instruct the driver to slow down, and if the driver doesn’t, then the car will slow down for him. This is just one of the ways that sensor-to-machine and machine-to-machine communication can take place. Sensors on the bridge connect to machines in the car: we turn information into action.
You might start to see the implications here. What can you achieve when a smart car and a smart city grid start talking to each other? We’re going to have traffic flow optimization, because instead of just having stoplights on fixed timers, we’ll have smart stoplights that can respond to changes in traffic flow. Traffic and street conditions will be communicated to drivers, rerouting them around areas that are congested, snowed-in, or tied up in construction.
So now we have sensors monitoring and tracking all sorts of data; we have cloud-based apps translating that data into useful intelligence and transmitting it to machines on the ground, enabling mobile, real-time responses. And thus bridges become smart bridges, and cars smart cars. And soon, we have smart cities, and….
Okay. What are the advantages here? What are the savings? What industries can this be applied to?
Here’s what I mean when I say people never think big enough. This isn’t just about money savings. It’s not about bridges, and it’s not about cities. This is a huge and fundamental shift. When we start making things intelligent, it’s going to be a major engine for creating new products and new services.
Of all the technology trends that are taking place right now, perhaps the biggest one is the Internet of Things; it’s the one that’s going to give us the most disruption as well as the most opportunity over the next five years. In my next post in this two-part series, we’ll explore just how big this is going to be.
GOOGLE'S BOSS ENVISIONS A UTOPIAN FUTURE
Original Story: technologyreview.com
Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt played make believe and sketched out his vision of the future on stage at TechCrunch’s Disrupt event in San Francisco today.
“It’s a future where you don’t forget anything…In this new future you’re never lost…We will know your position down to the foot and down to the inch over time…Your car will drive itself, it’s a bug that cars were invented before computers…you’re never lonely…you’re never bored…you’re never out of ideas.”
Schmidt filled in his vision with concrete examples of Google’s immediate future and strategy. “What we’re really doing is building an augmented version of humanity,” he mused before going on to talk about how smart phones, “the defining iconic device of their time,” can become real-time translators for speech.
“We can now demonstrate and are getting ready to ship products that let you speak in English and have it come out of a phone at the other end in German,” said Schmidt.
Cloud servers convert the speech to text–a core feature of phones with Google’s Android operating system–after which the tech behind Google translation service generates corresponding German text that can be spoken aloud by the recipient’s phone. Schmidt echoed the feelings of many when he said “for me this is the stuff of science fiction.”
Search remains a focus for Google, though, he said and it is set to get even smarter. “Where do we go next with search? You’ve got personal context. With your permission, and I need to say that about 500 times, we can make all these answers so much better.” Organic search results serve as a search engine endorsement for companies, products and services.
That context could include your search history as well as that of your friends, as well as your other information stored with Google, as long as you allow it. Given enough information search engines could become “autonomous,” said Schmidt, helping you at all times without your even typing a query.
“I’m interested in history, as I’m walking down the street in San Francisco I want my mobile device to tell me about the history here, think of it as a serendipity engine,” said Schmidt. He went on to say that Google is working to figure out what people really want when they search. For example a query for the weather may be fundamentally motivated by your wanting to know whether to wear a jacket or to water the garden. A smart search engine should be able to answer such questions when you search for the weather in your city.
But despite hints of greater social features, and the value of the data they could provide, Schmidt dodged a question about Google Me, calling it a “rumored product I won’t comment on.”
He was more forthcoming when asked about what it means when Google promises to be open. “The easiest comparison to do today is the Apple model,” he explained, “you have to use their development tools, their hardware, their software, when you submit an application they have to approve it. That would not be open. So the inverse would be open.”
Schmidt finished with a claim that the technology augmenting humanity would be more inclusive than that which came before. “This is a future for the average person, not just the elite. Because of technology, because of internet access, this is a market for one billion now, two billion soon, and in our lifetime five-to-six billion altogether.”
Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt played make believe and sketched out his vision of the future on stage at TechCrunch’s Disrupt event in San Francisco today.
“It’s a future where you don’t forget anything…In this new future you’re never lost…We will know your position down to the foot and down to the inch over time…Your car will drive itself, it’s a bug that cars were invented before computers…you’re never lonely…you’re never bored…you’re never out of ideas.”
Schmidt filled in his vision with concrete examples of Google’s immediate future and strategy. “What we’re really doing is building an augmented version of humanity,” he mused before going on to talk about how smart phones, “the defining iconic device of their time,” can become real-time translators for speech.
“We can now demonstrate and are getting ready to ship products that let you speak in English and have it come out of a phone at the other end in German,” said Schmidt.
Cloud servers convert the speech to text–a core feature of phones with Google’s Android operating system–after which the tech behind Google translation service generates corresponding German text that can be spoken aloud by the recipient’s phone. Schmidt echoed the feelings of many when he said “for me this is the stuff of science fiction.”
Search remains a focus for Google, though, he said and it is set to get even smarter. “Where do we go next with search? You’ve got personal context. With your permission, and I need to say that about 500 times, we can make all these answers so much better.” Organic search results serve as a search engine endorsement for companies, products and services.
That context could include your search history as well as that of your friends, as well as your other information stored with Google, as long as you allow it. Given enough information search engines could become “autonomous,” said Schmidt, helping you at all times without your even typing a query.
“I’m interested in history, as I’m walking down the street in San Francisco I want my mobile device to tell me about the history here, think of it as a serendipity engine,” said Schmidt. He went on to say that Google is working to figure out what people really want when they search. For example a query for the weather may be fundamentally motivated by your wanting to know whether to wear a jacket or to water the garden. A smart search engine should be able to answer such questions when you search for the weather in your city.
But despite hints of greater social features, and the value of the data they could provide, Schmidt dodged a question about Google Me, calling it a “rumored product I won’t comment on.”
He was more forthcoming when asked about what it means when Google promises to be open. “The easiest comparison to do today is the Apple model,” he explained, “you have to use their development tools, their hardware, their software, when you submit an application they have to approve it. That would not be open. So the inverse would be open.”
Schmidt finished with a claim that the technology augmenting humanity would be more inclusive than that which came before. “This is a future for the average person, not just the elite. Because of technology, because of internet access, this is a market for one billion now, two billion soon, and in our lifetime five-to-six billion altogether.”
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
WOMAN, HIT BY CAR, SUES GOOGLE FOR FAULTY DIRECTIONS
Original Story: cnet.com
Why trust the machines when you can trust your own eyes, your own brain, your own basic sense of survival?
This philosophical question comes to mind after reading the tragic tale of a woman, her eyes, her brain, her BlackBerry, and her Google Maps.
According to an exhaustive analysis presented by Search Engine Land, Lauren Rosenberg decided to take a walk in Park City, Utah, on January 19, 2009. A Detroit personal injury lawyer is reviewing the details of this case.
I will try and ignore just how fundamentally un-American this act was in order to focus on some of the ensuing action.
Rosenberg fingered her trusted BlackBerry and asked it to tell her just how she might walk between 96 Daly Avenue and 1710 Prospector Avenue. Her BlackBerry turned to the world's great walking resource, Google Maps. Google Maps suggested that she should, as part of her journey, amble along Deer Valley Drive.
For all of you who have not had the pleasure of strolling there, might I quote papers filed by Rosenberg's lawyers with the Utah courts. These papers describe Deer Valley Drive as "a.k.a. State Route 224, a rural highway with no sidewalks, and a roadway that exhibits motor vehicles traveling at high speeds, that is not reasonably safe for pedestrians."
There is perhaps nothing finer than a roadway that bothers to exhibit motor vehicles. Yet this was not quite the exhibition that Rosenberg had in mind. For during her stroll along State Route 224 aka Deer Valley Drive she was allegedly struck by a car driven by Patrick Harwood. A Chicago personal injury lawyer represents clients in personal injury, accident, an negligence cases.
She's suing Harwood. And she is also suing Google.
Perhaps some of you might think of Rosenberg as just a perambulating chaser. Yet she and her lawyers reason that Google's walking directions were "careless, reckless, and negligent providing of unsafe directions."
Now this is the point at which your complex minds become engaged and my rather simpler version becomes divorced. You see, if you ask Google Maps for walking directions on your laptop you get a very clear warning--yes, on one of those lovely beigey-yellow backgrounds--that reads: "Walking Direction are in Beta. Use caution--This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths."
The question is, does this warning appear when you go to Google Maps on your BlackBerry? Or, even more importantly, on Rosenberg's BlackBerry? It does not appear to appear on the iPhone. Which might suggest the same situation holds with the RIM phone.
What I cannot ascertain from the court papers is why Rosenberg would want to walk this route in Utah. She is, it appears, from Los Angeles, which means that she might not have been used to walking at all.
Equally puzzling is the first part part of the court papers where it is says that Rosenberg suffered mental, physical and emotional injuries that caused her to incur medical expenses "in an amount yet to be determined." And yet when it comes to the part about suing Google, medical expenses are said to exceed $100,000. A Grand Rapids personal injury attorney is following this story closely.
Courts have not always been sympathetic to those who claim that they were merely following the orders of enlightened machines. There was the man in England who ordered his BMW down an unpaved cliffside lane , got stuck, and then claimed that his GPS made him do it. The court decided it was the driver's own brain that made him do so.
Can Rosenberg expect Utah courts to be more sympathetic? In our world of increasingly diminished responsibility, might someone actually be in a position to prove that we are all now subjects of the Googleplex? Those Googlies have filmed our streets, made records of our Wi-Fi data, followed us around the Web until they could offer us ads that are "good" for us. Shouldn't we admit whose the supreme power truly is?
Or might the judge emit a cough and declaim in the finest Latin: "Caveat walker"?
Why trust the machines when you can trust your own eyes, your own brain, your own basic sense of survival?
This philosophical question comes to mind after reading the tragic tale of a woman, her eyes, her brain, her BlackBerry, and her Google Maps.
According to an exhaustive analysis presented by Search Engine Land, Lauren Rosenberg decided to take a walk in Park City, Utah, on January 19, 2009. A Detroit personal injury lawyer is reviewing the details of this case.
I will try and ignore just how fundamentally un-American this act was in order to focus on some of the ensuing action.
Rosenberg fingered her trusted BlackBerry and asked it to tell her just how she might walk between 96 Daly Avenue and 1710 Prospector Avenue. Her BlackBerry turned to the world's great walking resource, Google Maps. Google Maps suggested that she should, as part of her journey, amble along Deer Valley Drive.
For all of you who have not had the pleasure of strolling there, might I quote papers filed by Rosenberg's lawyers with the Utah courts. These papers describe Deer Valley Drive as "a.k.a. State Route 224, a rural highway with no sidewalks, and a roadway that exhibits motor vehicles traveling at high speeds, that is not reasonably safe for pedestrians."
There is perhaps nothing finer than a roadway that bothers to exhibit motor vehicles. Yet this was not quite the exhibition that Rosenberg had in mind. For during her stroll along State Route 224 aka Deer Valley Drive she was allegedly struck by a car driven by Patrick Harwood. A Chicago personal injury lawyer represents clients in personal injury, accident, an negligence cases.
She's suing Harwood. And she is also suing Google.
Perhaps some of you might think of Rosenberg as just a perambulating chaser. Yet she and her lawyers reason that Google's walking directions were "careless, reckless, and negligent providing of unsafe directions."
Now this is the point at which your complex minds become engaged and my rather simpler version becomes divorced. You see, if you ask Google Maps for walking directions on your laptop you get a very clear warning--yes, on one of those lovely beigey-yellow backgrounds--that reads: "Walking Direction are in Beta. Use caution--This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths."
The question is, does this warning appear when you go to Google Maps on your BlackBerry? Or, even more importantly, on Rosenberg's BlackBerry? It does not appear to appear on the iPhone. Which might suggest the same situation holds with the RIM phone.
What I cannot ascertain from the court papers is why Rosenberg would want to walk this route in Utah. She is, it appears, from Los Angeles, which means that she might not have been used to walking at all.
Equally puzzling is the first part part of the court papers where it is says that Rosenberg suffered mental, physical and emotional injuries that caused her to incur medical expenses "in an amount yet to be determined." And yet when it comes to the part about suing Google, medical expenses are said to exceed $100,000. A Grand Rapids personal injury attorney is following this story closely.
Courts have not always been sympathetic to those who claim that they were merely following the orders of enlightened machines. There was the man in England who ordered his BMW down an unpaved cliffside lane , got stuck, and then claimed that his GPS made him do it. The court decided it was the driver's own brain that made him do so.
Can Rosenberg expect Utah courts to be more sympathetic? In our world of increasingly diminished responsibility, might someone actually be in a position to prove that we are all now subjects of the Googleplex? Those Googlies have filmed our streets, made records of our Wi-Fi data, followed us around the Web until they could offer us ads that are "good" for us. Shouldn't we admit whose the supreme power truly is?
Or might the judge emit a cough and declaim in the finest Latin: "Caveat walker"?
WSJ: GOOGLE WILL ADD BUY BUTTONS TO SEARCH RESULTS ON MOBILE
Original Story: engadget.com
Google's getting ready to face Amazon and eBay, according to The Wall Street Journal, and will be adding buy buttons directly to its search results. You'll see those buttons accompanying sponsored results under a "Shop on Google" heading -- they won't be used for non-sponsored links returned by the algorithm -- when you search for products on mobile devices. Upon clicking one, a separate product page will load where you can pick sizes, colors and ultimately complete your purchase. Any product you buy will still come straight from retailers, the WSJ says, so it doesn't sound like Google's stocking up warehouses with goods like Amazon does.
However, some major retailers are apparently worried that they'll get stuck with back-end order fulfillment with no real customer interaction. Since Google wants to remain in good terms with them (they are some of its largest advertisers, after all), it will give shoppers the choice to subscribe to their marketing programs. That typically means mailing lists and the like, so the company's giving them access to customers' info, most likely names and addresses.
In addition, Google promised them that the product landing pages will be heavily branded with their names and will link to more of their products. The company also won't take a cut from their sales and will only get paid for every person that clicks their links. Mountain View will reportedly offer several payment options, "including digital payment methods from other providers," but it (thankfully) won't be giving retailers access to payment details. If you input credit card info to make a purchase, the website will save it for future transactions, but it will remain with the company.
As for why the feature will only be available on mobile, well, Google has a plethora of reasons. The biggest one is most likely the fact that more people now perform searches on their phones than on computers. Search engine optimization allows businesses to maintain premium keyword positions in organic search results, so products are easily found by consumers. According to the WSJ, you might spot a buy button or two as soon as the coming weeks. We don't have a list of official partners yet, since Google hasn't officially announced anything, but Macy's might be one of the first retailers available.
Google's getting ready to face Amazon and eBay, according to The Wall Street Journal, and will be adding buy buttons directly to its search results. You'll see those buttons accompanying sponsored results under a "Shop on Google" heading -- they won't be used for non-sponsored links returned by the algorithm -- when you search for products on mobile devices. Upon clicking one, a separate product page will load where you can pick sizes, colors and ultimately complete your purchase. Any product you buy will still come straight from retailers, the WSJ says, so it doesn't sound like Google's stocking up warehouses with goods like Amazon does.
However, some major retailers are apparently worried that they'll get stuck with back-end order fulfillment with no real customer interaction. Since Google wants to remain in good terms with them (they are some of its largest advertisers, after all), it will give shoppers the choice to subscribe to their marketing programs. That typically means mailing lists and the like, so the company's giving them access to customers' info, most likely names and addresses.
In addition, Google promised them that the product landing pages will be heavily branded with their names and will link to more of their products. The company also won't take a cut from their sales and will only get paid for every person that clicks their links. Mountain View will reportedly offer several payment options, "including digital payment methods from other providers," but it (thankfully) won't be giving retailers access to payment details. If you input credit card info to make a purchase, the website will save it for future transactions, but it will remain with the company.
As for why the feature will only be available on mobile, well, Google has a plethora of reasons. The biggest one is most likely the fact that more people now perform searches on their phones than on computers. Search engine optimization allows businesses to maintain premium keyword positions in organic search results, so products are easily found by consumers. According to the WSJ, you might spot a buy button or two as soon as the coming weeks. We don't have a list of official partners yet, since Google hasn't officially announced anything, but Macy's might be one of the first retailers available.
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