Most people in Silicon Valley likely have a recurring nightmare of becoming the next MySpace, a prime example of how quickly one can become an obsolete experience. This fear is what keeps the tech industry relentlessly pursuing its next great venture – and the king of new, great ventures is Google.
“You have to stay a tenth of a step ahead of everyone else who’s even thinking about getting into your space, because once there starts to be momentum for leaving your ecosystem ... the thing can collapse very quickly,” says Alex Rosaen, director of public policy and economic analysis at the Anderson Economic Group in East Lansing, Mich. “Like a flock of birds, the whole flock can change direction and you can be the next MySpace.”
Once hailed as just a “search engine giant," Google seems to have outgrown its original title. Google’s hundreds and hundreds of undertakings span over seemingly every industry and highlight how the tech titan is re-imagining the human experience, with its own products and investments, of course.
When Google financially explores a sector, it invests big and often. Though the company’s pursuit of different industries has become common knowledge, the details of these investments are almost always kept quiet. This article will take the bits of scattered information about Google’s entrepreneurial adventures to form a picture of how the company envisions the future.
Google has made a lucrative business out of investments, much like others in Silicon Valley, and created two investing arms: Google Ventures, for start-ups, and Google Capital, for well-established businesses. This article will focus on acquisitions and investments in travel, education, business, banking, robots, and artificial intelligence since 2009, when Google Ventures was created and the company really began to throw its weight and money around.
