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> why didn’t Google

Because hubris.

One glaring flaw of well-capitalized large tech (perhaps the only one) is thinking they can build something better internally, when they have enough cash to simply buy best of breed off the market.

At times Google understood this: Android 2005, YouTube 2006, Writely/GoogleDocs 2006, DoubleClick 2007, Motorola Mobility 2012, Waze 2013, DeepMind 2014

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Either thinking they can build something better internally, thinking the new thing doesn't matter, or realizing that it does matter but not having the ability to move fast and commercialize it.

e.g. Microsoft circa 2000 didn't think they could build a better internet. They just thought that the internet didn't really matter that much. Google in 2022 knew that LLMs mattered, and had spent a ton of money, but OpenAI just got a better product to market faster.

I'd add HTC's mobile phone unit to the list of strategically important Google acquisitions (and prehaps Dropcam, too). Without either of those -- even with all the fits & starts, they'd never have gotten to where they are today, building pretty great hardware with pretty good support and a decent supply chain, and largely with "good" software on top.

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