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I mean it's kinda true. But they still had to figure out that these were the projects/companies worth buying and afterwards pursuing and advancing them such that they would become the cash-cows they are today.

IMHO the Google Home devices and Chromecast are quite successful.

I admit these are probably not powerhouses on the level of Android, Chrome or YouTube. However it's just not possible to create a powerhouse every 1 or 2 years.

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YouTube at least was already well on in that direction - Google had a competing product that was a total flop, and only afterwards did they buy YouTube.

They bought YouTube for a billion dollar - which was back then a crazy number. I still remember all that people arguing (including me) that Google would never make so much money back from YouTube. YouTube even had the reputation for being a huge loss for Google for multiple years.

The YouTube deal was a boardroom backscratch to the Sand Hill Road VCs. YouTube was hemorrhaging money on bandwidth with zero possibility of ever being profitable.

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