While I wholeheartedly agree with this statement, unfortunately AI is an area where they might succeed.
AI mainly requires:
1. Brilliant researchers/engineers
2. A ton of money
Google is one of the few companies that have abundance of both.
Even if they create just the tech and another company builds a product on top, Google will just acquire them.
What profitable products have all of their brilliance abd money brought to the world outside of adTech?
It came out in the Oracle trial that Android only made Google a total of around $23 billion in profit total by 2016. All indication is that Google pays more to Apple to be the default search engine on iOS than it makes on Android.
Amazon or Airbnb could be started in a garage by a small group of enthusiasts. Something like ChatGPT (or Chrome) cannot. Hopefully I'm wrong.
I didn’t say it can’t create the technology. There is a huge difference in the competence that it takes to develop software and the competence it takes to create a profitable product that needs vision, patience and strong leadership.
It has the focus of a crackle addled flea.