Acquired · Thread
The Google saga
Treated as a four-part company across the catalogue: search origins, the Alphabet reorganisation, the AI pivot, and Maps as its own infrastructure.
Each of the threads on this site is an arc — a set of episodes that only make sense as installments of the same argument. This page is the in-order index of one of them.
Concepts the thread keeps returning to
Distribution control
Power that comes from owning scarce demand, channels, attention, or route-to-market.
Vertical integration
Owning more of the value chain than necessary, in order to capture margin or remove a dependency that could become an obstacle.
The arc · 4 episodes over 6 years
Treated as a four-part company across the catalogue: search origins, the Alphabet reorganisation, the AI pivot, and Maps as its own infrastructure.