Google is far from one trick pony. Android is the most dominant operating system in the world. YouTube the most dominating Video sharing website in the world. Gmail the most widely used web-based email service. Google maps...
If my experience being part of the Amazon Echo team has taught me anything, it's that the most simple looking things (like Search, or Voice UI) require the most complex skill set.
Even if Google got just one thing right in your eyes (aka Search/AdWords), rest assured, underneath they employed a considerable number of disparate 'tricks' to get that right-- you just chose to umbrella dismiss those many tricks as 'One Trick' (TM).
per the other commenter, most of those are acquisitions and, outside of Youtube, what's the P&L for those other products sans search advertising?
I'm sure Echo is very complex, but it's usually not the complexity of the problem that is important from a business standpoint, but choosing which problem to solve.
At the risk of getting down voted by folks not in the know, Adwords was also such an infringement (just done much much better) of an Overture patent [1] that if it hadn't been for Yahoo buying up Overture and later settling the lawsuit, our views on Google's success might be very different today.
In July 2005, Google acquired Android Inc. for at least $50 million, whose key employees, including Rubin, Miner and White, stayed at the company after the acquisition.
Please ignore the folks who were snarky and downvoted you.
Folks like to think this was really an acquisition, but they are mostly wrong :)
In particular, Google basically acquired some people. Anyone who thinks they had a real OS at that point, and anything that approached even the first version of android, is smoking something.
Source: I did diligence on the acquisition, and I watched them develop android at Google.
A question that can be answered by pasting it into a search engine is very unlikely to provoke an insightful discussion, and is not good use of HN real estate.
Amazon is the most impressive company, IMHO. I love my Echo, and I read on a "paperwhite" Kindle even though I have an iPad.
I think Amazon could take over the phone market. Just make a phone that is an "Amazon remote control" with shopping, music, and video streaming built in, combined with Alexa that "just works". (Or a color e-ink phone with no video support, but a long battery life.)
>ust make a phone that is an "Amazon remote control" with shopping, music, and video streaming built in
The problem is the world is much bigger than Amazon. I buy from Amazon often, but I don't want it to be at the center of everything I do. I think most people would agree. That's why all their phones failed, and why the facebook phone failed too.
If my experience being part of the Amazon Echo team has taught me anything, it's that the most simple looking things (like Search, or Voice UI) require the most complex skill set.
Even if Google got just one thing right in your eyes (aka Search/AdWords), rest assured, underneath they employed a considerable number of disparate 'tricks' to get that right-- you just chose to umbrella dismiss those many tricks as 'One Trick' (TM).