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Comment by wonder_bread | Hacker News Reader

Kind of interesting to see Microsoft & Amazon 'passing by' Google lately, considering how much more earning power they have than either of them.

Even if Amazon didn't spend a dime on R&D the most they could've earned on operating income is ~$26B, if Microsoft zeroed out their R&D they could've had about ~$35B.

Meanwhile, if Google decided to go full-profit last year they would've had on the order of $42B.

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That's not a very good accounting comparison.

If Microsoft had zeroed out their R&D last quarter, they'd have produced $12 billion in operating income. Your $35b figure includes a fluke quarter.

Microsoft's trailing four quarters figure, with R&D zeroed out, will jump to ~$47 billion once the present quarter is reported. Google's trailing four quarters figure will be similar, around ~$48 billion, assuming their present quarter is close to the prior three (which are at about $36b together, with R&D zeroed out).

I tallied those amounts using the before-tax operating income, both companies reported adjusted losses in Q4 because of the tax overhaul

Clearly some investors don't believe in Google's moonshots.

Not unlikely, but as well; both the stock discount and the moonshots have to do with Google being so dependent on one source for its income (ads) as others here have noted.

So far have any worked out?

Gmail and Android can be considered moonshots, completely separate bets from the cash cow search product. They have both been enormously successful and been the starting point for new revenue lines (the whole GSuite for businesses, the Play Store)

Next moonshot which looks extremely promising is Waymo

No one will ever know because those products were killed off...

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