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Comment by chuckcode | Hacker News Reader

It would be great to see google diversify their business model as well as their technology so they weren't getting most of their profit from advertising.

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Sometimes doing one thing well is good enough. Like Gillette or Coca-Cola.

Gillette is part of Proctor and Gamble. Coca-Cola makes hundreds (thousands?) of products.

I think Google also thinks this would be great, but they haven't figured out how to do it yet. Hence the many bets on new technology.

It does -- there are products for enterprises, hardware, Google Play ecosystem, Internet access (fiber, loon), operating systems, investments into health research and robotics, self-driving cars, house energy and safety products (Nest). Not enough?

Enterprise (with Google Docs), and maybe Chromecast, are the two arguably profitable non-advertising products. The other product areas are surely in the red.

Google is trying to diversify, but they haven't been successful at turning a profit on non-advertising products, at least not yet.

How can you possibly know (unless you're a member of Google leadership team)?

Because they're a public company and are therefore required by the SEC to provide a certain level of disclosure about the sources of their revenue.

I understand that, but it's not what I meant. I meant is how he knew that other products such as Play store are not profitable? I don't think Google breaks down the profit reports to this level of granularity, so it might be just reported as an ad revenue/profits.

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