DISRUPT - Alphabet (Google) Reports First US$100B Revenue Year

Alphabet a Global Disruptor in Many Sectors Seeks to Remain Unconventional for the Future

Sundar Pichai CEO, and Ruth Porat CFO, of Alphabet together delivered the Alphabet Q4 webcast yesterday. Google reported its first US$100B plus revenue year.

Links to the Q4 report, the Q4 webcast and an interview with Eric Schmidt about the future employment needs of America are placed at the end of this article.

"Our business is driving great growth, with 2017 revenues of $110.9 billion, up 23% year on year, and fourth quarter revenues of $32.3 billion, up 24% year on year. Our full year operating income growth continues to underscore our core strength, and on top of this, we continue to make substantial investments for the long-term in exciting new businesses," said CFO Ruth Porat.

One of the world's largest disruptors announced it is going on a U.S. hiring spree and increasing its footprint outside of Silicon Valley. Alphabet announced plans to add facilities in 9 nine additional states. The company already has offices or data centres in 21 states and is also planning a massive expansion only 13 miles from its current headquarters in San Jose.

"Last year in the US we grew faster outside the Bay Area than in the Bay Area. To support this growth, we will be making significant investments in offices across nine states, including Colorado and Michigan. We plan to hire thousands of people across the U.S. this year," said CEO Sundar Pichai.

Increased attention on tech company hiring in the United States and political pressure to invest and create jobs locally has resulted in a number of announcements since mid December. In addition to Google's plans, Amazon is adding a second HQ site with the promise of 50K new jobs, Apple is investing US$30B and will create 20K new jobs and Facebook is doubling its US based data centers from 5 to 10 which together with their new monitoring group is likely to employ 3-5K new jobs.

Eleven years ago Sergey Brin and Larry Page wrote the original founders letter for Google. In that letter they stated:

“Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one...

We’ve long believed that over time companies tend to get comfortable doing the same thing, just making incremental changes. But in the technology industry, where revolutionary ideas drive the next big growth areas, you need to be a bit uncomfortable to stay relevant."

The Google Founders and 'C' level management continue to be excited about seven things:

• Getting more ambitious things done.
• Taking the long-term view.
• Empowering great entrepreneurs and companies to flourish.
• Investing at the scale of the opportunities and resources we see.
• Improving the transparency and oversight of what we’re doing.
• Making Google even better through greater focus.
• And hopefully… as a result of all this, improving the lives of as many people as we can.

In other news, the replacement for Eric Schmidt as Chair of the Alphabet board of directors was named yesterday. The former President of Stanford University, John Hennessy will assume this role.

Alphabet Earnings Release 2018Feb01

Alphabet Webcast 2018Feb01

Eric Schmidt Former Alphabet Chair Discusses Employment Needs in America