They also have a fiduciary duty to their other investors, and going all-in on Google cloud would be a pretty big risk (relative to other cloud providers) given the uncertainty about whether it'll still exist in 5-10 years.
From https://www.geekwire.com/2023/google-cloud-posts-second-stra...
Yes, Google has killed a lot of products... but none of those ever came anywhere close to turning such a profit!
When I read $300m, what I read is "when you factor in office costs & health care as well as salary/stock grants, an average FAANG software engineer must be ~$1m. That's only 300 employees!"
It's a crazy way to think. Suddenly all prices that end with `m` and not `b` seem pointless.
Still, for proper context, google reader may be small but google stadia was big by any scale, with significant datacentre investment, dedicated consumer hardware, exclusive publishing deals, marketing campaigns, etc. And 10 years isn't as long as it used to be in the IT world :)
Google cloud (it's earliest form anyway) launched in 2008. It's older than Drive and Photos. In a year or two, there will be Google employees younger than Cloud is.
But will specific parts of Google Cloud continue to exist or increase in cost. Things that have happened to GCloud very recently.
It just isn't worth the risk to invest in google cloud.
Like what exactly?
https://manifold.markets/OliverMattos/will-google-announce-t...
For context, there are 5 people and 1 bot betting, and it's not real cash or even something with a cash equivalent, and the bet amounts are less than what you get for free on sign up -- not exactly what I'd call a "market". And the bet is that they'll close Google Cloud in 2 years, not 5-10 years as is being discussed.