Red Bull spends a lot of money on seeming cool. Some of their stuff is neat, but in the end its just marketing. Their core business is still selling overpriced energy drinks.
Google spends a lot of money on seeming cool. Some of their stuff is neat, but in the end its just marketing. Their core business is still selling overpriced advertisements.
Google has some cool core technology. In a way most of it is a vehicle to sell/target ads, sure, but the relationship between their cool stuff and revenue source is a lot closer than with Red Bull.
If they make cool things so that they can sell overpriced energy drinks, aren't they still making cool things? Isn't that still a good thing?
Don't under-credit marketing. It could be argued that things such as Gmail and Android are "just marketing".