Comment by bun_at_work
8 years ago
Before people go too far with not actually reading the article, here are the main points to actually understand:
1. This is Verily, not Google, owned by Alphabet.
2. They are releasing male mosquitoes (that don't bite) in the area, where the species is not native. They are attempting to remove the species only from their unnatural habitat.
3. The headline is clickbait, as Google is not involved and no one is trying to eliminate mosquitoes "around the world."
In all cases I've seen of countering mosquitoes in any way, all researchers are aware of risks and take them very seriously. The goals tend to be similar to this one or have to do with eliminating the spread of malaria and other mosquito-transmitted disease.
Alphabet was a corporate restructuring of Google, which also changed the name "Google Life Sciences" to "Verily." The search engine Google is not involved, but the company everyone knows as Google is involved.
That's as relevant as saying "everyone knows" that the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation has Microsoft involved.
In other words, not relevant at all. The money can originally have been generated by Google, and now it's invested in something completely different but that has the same ultimate owners.
People and investors can legitimately start new ventures with different missions that operate completely independently for all practical purposes. Nobody claims that The Boring Company is just Tesla, or that Tesla is just SpaceX, or that they're all just PayPal.
I don't get why people are so quick to jump on the assumption that because there are things they dislike about Google's business model or practices, the whole umbrella of Alphabet's hugely diverse set of businesses is somehow tainted by association.
Google does what it does - bad things included - thanks to the decisions of a small group of people, who is now also controlling Alphabet and its subsidiaries like Verily. It's perfectly rational to assume they have not changed the methods, management style and ethical boundaries that led to the disliked behaviors in Google.
2 replies →
>I don't get why people are so quick to jump on the assumption that because there are things they dislike about Google's business model or practices, the whole umbrella of Alphabet's hugely diverse set of businesses is somehow tainted by association
Because Alphabet is Google. The only reason that diverse set of businesses exist are the practices previously at the same company. There is no separation like your other examples, they just changed the name.
Yep - that's true.
However, they are different companies with different staff, mission statements, and overall goals now. Conflating them to suggest that an ad company is trying to eliminate mosquitos is misleading, at best.
Alphabet is a company that still makes the bulk of its revenue from advertising, and invests that money in its other ventures. It's not misleading at all to suggest that this project is being funded by advertising revenue.
7 replies →
Both companies can informally be referred to as "Google." One because it runs the search engine. The other because it was known as Google until a few years ago, owns the search engine, trades as "GOOG," and a variety of reasons. It would be more misleading to refer to them as Alphabet, as everybody knows them as Google.
"everyone"? I suspect of the non-echo-chamber populous that is not on this website, 99.9% of them would "know" the search engine Google as "the company" Google.
I think you've misunderstood me, as that largely is my point. Though the company is now called Alphabet, everyone still knows them as Google.
2 replies →
> This is Verily, not Google, owned by Alphabet.
That's a minor distinction without a difference in the public's mind. Alphabet == Google unless you care an unusual amount about that corporation's org charts.
It's very different. They are literally different companies with different mission statements. Just because you don't want to take the time to understand, being content to become outraged whenever you read a specific six letters in sequence, doesn't mean everyone else should, or that you should contribute to FUD.
This comment and a few of your others have crossed into flamewar, which is the opposite of what we want here, so please don't do that.
As for your main point, I don't see a good solution. No one has heard of Verily. If we /s/Google/Alphabet/ in the title, that feels a bit like weasling to me. Everybody knows this company as Google. On the other hand, if we leave Google in the title, we get irrelevant (and worse) comments about search engines and ads.
1 reply →
> It's very different. They are literally different companies with different mission statements.
Only if you care an unusual amount about that corporation's org charts. Corporate mission statements are meaningless, except to an even smaller group of people.
Insisting that Alphabet isn't Google, is sort of like insisting that Puffs [1] tissues aren't Kleenex. While it may technically be true in some legalistic sense, a vanishingly small number of people actually care and colloquial language disagrees. People will look at you funny if you act like the distinction matters, because it doesn't.
[1] https://puffs.com/en-us
7 replies →
https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/goog Let's not kid ourselves, Alphabet Inc is Google.
Most companies are broken up into separate entities. For instance, nearly 100% of the banks you interact with are more than one "company". You have mortgage, auto loan, credit cards, etc. The reason for this is liability and billing (same as Alphabet). They may even have different mottos and definitely different management. All that is to mitigate risk and work more effectively, but they are the same entitity owned by the same people, typically with the same driving factor or competitive advantage.
3 replies →
So in your mind, AWS is a completely different company than Amazon, right? They have their own CEO..
What Stock does one acquire to own part of this company? Oh, GOOG
Yeah and P Diddy changed his name again.
The immediate jump to assuming outrage and FUD in others strange. I associate Alphabet as ~= Google and I am not outraged that they're researching this topic. Why the overeager apologia?
4 replies →
Also we're talking about the one type of mosquito that carries malaria to people. The rest are tickety-boo and can continue to make your figs happen.
How is this new from solutions that others have already proposed? And what business does an ad company have in getting into this?
Alphabet is not only Google Anymore, it's a conglomarate with a portfolio of a very diverse range of industries.
Alphabet never was “only Google” even on day 1. Google was long a conglomerate containing Google and “Other Bets”, other companies such as Nest etc before the alphabet shuffle.
Google was more or less just as much a holding company for a diverse range of other companies such as this Verily then as Alphabet is now, which is why the distinction between the two is considered so artificial by many here, an idea further compounded by the fact Google stock was converted to Alphabet stock and still uses Google’s ticker symbols.
Again, this is Verily [0], not an ad company.
[0] https://verily.com/
> And what business does an ad company have in getting into this?
Yes, instead of applauding the effort of solving a very difficult problem that could help people in real meaningful way, I am just going to go for cheap potshots to show how elite I am.
It's far easier to make snide remarks than it is to critically think.
1 reply →
If it works, they can sell it to governments I assume.
Correct and there's money there. Other then disease they also bother you: a whole industry exists to keep them from biting you.