Gongol.com Archives: February 2016
February 4, 2016
Google parent company Alphabet announces earnings
Alphabet had $75 billion in revenues in 2015, with $67 billion of that coming from advertising. Only $448 million in revenues came from "other bets" -- their category for Calico, Google Fiber, Google Ventures, Google X, and Nest -- and that category lost $3.5 billion. Turns out, it's expensive to lay that much fiber-optic cable. Why they don't just buy proven, profitable businesses and find ways to make them more profitable is a mystery. The "science projects" are sexy and headline-grabbing, but from an investment perspective, there may be smarter choices to be made.
Many people don't understand their student loans
Literacy comes in many forms: Conventional literacy with the written word, of course, but also numeracy...and functional literacy with science, technology, and economics. If we're sending 18-year-olds out into the world with high-school diplomas and not adequately preparing them for those "other" literacies, then we're in trouble.
Psychographics are influencing the 2016 election
Senator Ted Cruz may be making the most progress with them thus far...to the detriment of the health of the Republican Party.
Now Yahoo may be reconsidering putting itself up for sale
Verizon is being kicked around as a possible buyer
NSA worries that quantum computers will overwhelm security
And for what it's worth, they're not just a security issue. Massive changes in computing capacity and strategy could easily overturn some big business models -- like, for instance, Google's.
Toyota to shut down the Scion brand
The cars will simply become Toyotas
