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Comment by elmar | Hacker News Reader

I think most of google sucesses outside search were done like that without the CEO having knowledge.

I was about to say the same, but it’s not exactly the same. You are free to build anything, but using existing stack. Not pickup new stack and rewrite something that’s not even broken.

That said, probably more often than not, there’s an actual value in it.

I think reality is more serendipitous, ny view is that if you have hardworking creativy people working on side projects sometimes magic happens.

For example: Android was a completely diferent tech stack from google.

Android was bought in though.

I heard in a lecture of Blitzscaling with Eric Schmidt that google founders got the Google Chrome and Android projects running inside google without him knowing the real breath and intentions of the projects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcRxFRgNpns

The main difference could be that google has loads of cash to burn trying things out. I don't know their history 100% but suspect they were pretty strict with standards when they were a small start up.

Ads: doubleclick, bought

Maps: bought

Youtube: bought

Android: bought

What else?

Google had a successful ads business before the doubleclick acquisition.

They are still more or less separate software stacks. (Disclaimer: This knowledge is outdated by about 2 years, but a significant change is unlikely. )

but it was far from supporting the whole company alone as it is now. it mostly was successful because of their search monopoly alone. they could have banners and it would have been the same before the acquisition

Source on Maps please. They bought KeyHole or whatever, fir Google Earth maybe. But Maps itself was started in-house, no?

Wikipedia says: "Google Maps began as a C++ desktop program designed by Lars and Jens Eilstrup Rasmussen at Where 2 Technologies. In October 2004, the company was acquired by Google, which converted it into a web application."

the web 2.0 interface to the bought map backend, yes I think that was original.

Flights, bought (ITA Software)

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