...it was supposed to get them into the highly lucrative world of military contracting. But then it caused too much of a PR stink, so they had to back off from that idea.

" How the hell is a robot dog that does flips or whatever supposed to improve their advertising business exactly?"

Because a robot that does flips can also flip burgers, pick inventory, sneak up on people (i.e. military) and ultimately that stuff will be worth a lot.

One of their lesser goofy investments.

Yeah, it was so less goofy they had to unload it on Softbank, the goofy investment kings.

Softbank is not making goofy investments (hover skatebaords), they are making ROI investments (real estate leasing).

Google dumped the robots for strategic reasons, moreover, it's going to be a while before payoff.

Softbank going all in on ARM at this late stage of the game seemed a little on the goofy side. I didn't know they were into real estate. Isn't it kind of a bad idea to buy real estate, but not be structured like a REIT since you'd lose tax advantages? Then again, I don't know how it works in Japan. I just know I've been suspicious of Softbank ever since they put a ton of money into Yahoo, and I haven't seen any evidence countering this admitted bias.

Softbank is not making 'goofy' investments along the lines of Google's 'loon' projects, like putting Wifi in air balloons.

They are making 'real' investments in late stage companies with actual business models, or things that have obvious potential upsides.

Softbank is basically where companies go for D and E rounds instead of going public. So there is some risk, but way less risk than left-field, early stage investments.

Their 'real estate' investment is in WeWork, which probably will make them a lot of money as long as interest rates don't flinch higher, and as long as there is no real-estate crash.

Sprint, ARM, Yahoo, Uber, Slack - these are not 'crazy' investments, especially depending on price. Yahoo might actually have some 'decent fundamentals' on some level, and be worth something at some price. They have a gigantic audience, and some small changes might make them be profitable at some level, and they could very well be worth something, at some price.

It's a cross between classic private equity and late stage venture capital, all of their investments make sense in that context.

The unceasing robot dog terminator hunts you down, pins you, and shows you ads on its visor/eyes.

This comment reminds me of one of my favorite pieces of Internet fiction titled Attention Deficit Disorder[1]. The original context was a thread where the OP was arguing for a literal "attention economy" and the story is meant to extrapolate their arguments into absurdity.

[1]: https://pastebin.com/KCbP6rbr

Lol this is terrifying.