Google Acquires Titan Aerospace, The Drone Company Pursued By Facebook

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/google-acquires-titan-aerospace-the-drone-company-pursued-by-facebook/

by jeffpalmer • 12 years ago

123 52 12 years ago

waps• 12 years ago

Very interesting company. Your next internet router : http://titanaerospace.com/platforms/solara-50

Can't quite compete with what SpaceX is going to do today, but ... very nice. Doesn't look like they've actually built the thing yet though.

Dorian-Marie• 12 years ago

Returns a 404 now, here is the Google Cache version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VxviNXD...

id• 12 years ago

Interestingly, the link is still on their front page.

And they are using WordPress: http://titanaerospace.com/wp-admin

JTon• 12 years ago

My next internet router is going to be a solar powered flying machine?

adrianpike• 12 years ago

Mesh networks certainly get more exciting when nodes are mobile.

uptown• 12 years ago

So what's the grand vision with the huge shift Google is making towards drones, robotics and automation? Does it provide them with a set of data about the movement of goods and individuals unavailable through other avenues? Most Google products tie back into some input useful for advertising. Is this the same, or is it some grand branch towards expanding into something new?

verandaguy• 12 years ago

Is it completely naïve to believe that Google perhaps intends to use these acquisitions for genuine R&D rather than for analytics and data mining?

Balgair3• 12 years ago

I see your point and would like to agree to it, but no. Really, I wish Google was really interested in actually doing good. But their track record with this 'no-hire-from Apple' thing alone says otherwise. Yeah, the X guys may mean well, and yeah it might be really cool stuff, but I am super hesitant to think it's not just to track people better.

For example, look at glass. Yeah, it's got a marketing problem now, but the tech is right out of 'Snow Crash'. Its amazing! But that damn camera on it. I have a real suspicion they are just tracking where you look to get abetter idea of what ads attract people in real life. Its only a matter of time before they have a feature that tracks your eye movement and focus to help take pictures or whatever. And then what? They know what you are looking at in real time. So what? Well, I just don't get the 'don't be evil' vibe from that kind of data.

AJ007• 12 years ago

I think there is an honest interest in expanding the telecommunications side of the company. This chart from Ben Evans really puts the market size in to perspective: http://static.squarespace.com/static/50363cf324ac8e905e7df86...

Google could probably double or triple their revenue from moving in to this space (margins won't follow, but that is a different issue.)

beemoe• 12 years ago

Perhaps this particular case has motivations similar to the ballon project, i.e. more internet access brings more ad impressions.

ngd• 12 years ago

I think it's naive to assume that Google's investments are always a couple of steps away from making money via ad impressions. Listening to Larry Page speak never leaves me with that impression, it usually leaves me inspired and of the opinion that Google truly wants to improve the human race, and the world, through technology.

strlen• 12 years ago

I suspect there are two parts: some of these (drones, fiber) are intended to provide a more seamless Internet experience to more people. By extension, it means more advertising.

Others are investigations of revenue streams beyond advertising but able to leverage Google's in-house strengths in machine learning, computer vision, distributed systems, AI, and other related topics. This is not strange given Google has had subscription based services for some time now: e.g., Apps and Cloud Platform.

mrb• 12 years ago

We bought Titan Aerospace to help us solve some problems such as : giving more people access to Internet, monitoring environmental damage like deforestation, helping during disaster relief, etc.

Disclosure: I work for Google. The above is all what employees are allowed to share, and all I know (I don't even work within or with robotics groups).

ansible• 12 years ago

I'd love to see some automated cable-laying bots that can just dig underground and pull fiber optic cable behind them.

debt• 12 years ago

All these large tech advertising companies like Google and Facebook talk about huge untapped emerging markets, about moving internationally. Yet these emerging markets lack a very critical component: infrastructure. Yeah, great you want to expand the reach of your ads to new countries but most of those developing countries(3 billion people) still use feature phones and mostly with voice/text.

So why would they wait for the infrastructure to be built?

Google can fly a fleet of autonomous, artificially intelligent, solar powered mesh-connected internet drones across a wide geographic area(wider than what traditional telecoms can offer) offering faster(albeit likely slower compared to developed markets) and cheap internet. It'll practically run itself. They then can turn around and license these drones to the governments of those same developing markets where internet maybe slow or nonexistent or too costly to build in traditional ways(laying pipe, etc).

It's brilliant and potentially a huge money maker due to their, again, first-mover advantage. Facebook had it but blew their cash on da Rift.

ChuckMcM• 12 years ago

Interesting move. More interesting that robotics companies are such hot takeover targets these days.

elsewhen• 12 years ago

I think this type of initiative might also be used to provide more accurate location data for mobile users. accessing GPS satellites is sometimes challenging in cities (where most mobile users are) and a fleet of drones above each city could prove helpful.

incision• 12 years ago

Something unsettling about the feeling (founded or not) that a handful of tech juggernauts have the ability to buy up seemingly whatever they want.

This along with the anti-headhunting collusion, sprawling campuses puts me in mind of a Gibsonian future ruled by a handful corporate arcologies [0].

Has business always operated this way and I'm only now noticing because it's happening closer to home?

0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology

loceng• 12 years ago

A future open technology sounds nice doesn't it? The only issue here then is making sure resources are distributed, managed and organized in a kind way.

capkutay• 12 years ago

Well, it's possible that they recognize that market capitalizations of tech companies are a little saturated right now given their sources of revenue and growth plans. So while your stock is overvalued, one of the best ways you can take advantage of it is making stock-heavy acquisitions (even if the deal is 50/50 cash-stock, it helps when your stock is valued at $550 a share). How else could they take advantage of high stock valuations in the short term?

seizethecheese• 12 years ago

Good point. It kills me,however, when people quote a stock price when they really should talk about market cap. Stock prices are basically arbitrary unless you consider shares outstanding.

mcphilip• 12 years ago

Once you're a front runner in a given market sector, it's often more efficient to buy up smaller companies to gain valuable intellectual property and future revenue streams than it is to rely solely on inhouse R&D. These types of acquisition sprees are extremely common, especially with companies like Google that are flush with cash.

mehrdada• 12 years ago

to gain valuable intellectual property and future revenue streams

...and neutralize the risk of potential competitors by effectively killing them

samstave• 12 years ago

You might agree with this post I made a couple years ago on the idea of acquisitions by the tech giants:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4325445

icegreentea• 12 years ago

Businesses have pretty much always worked this way. If you accept that efficiencies of scale are a thing, that network effects are real, and that capital breeds capital, then you pretty much arrive at the conclusion that capitalist systems will tend to grow towards consolidation and concentration of power. Disruption is always a thing - corporations are still run by humans and still subject to some weaknesses of human judgement, but concentration of capital and power will tend to feedback on itself.

For example, take a look at the list of brands owned by P&G and Johnson&Johnson.

orblivion• 12 years ago

Calculation problems are a thing too, though. A huge corporation is still central planning, which isn't very efficient. That's why disruption happens, at a large scale there's a lot more room for error. That is, if they really are subject to market forces, which is always a good thing to question.

techaddict009• 12 years ago

Larry to Mark : So you acquired Whatsapp which I was planning to acquire..

No worries..

Here we go... Titan Aerospace !

#Joke

api• 12 years ago

Why the hell would Facebook be interested in a drone company? Google makes only slightly more sense.

burke• 12 years ago

Google makes a ton of sense: It will be a major competitive advantage for its Maps product. Facebook makes no sense whatsoever.

syjer• 12 years ago

See their internet.org initiative for the feel good side. Or, on the business side, they want to capture their future customers where the internet is hard to access.

dm2• 12 years ago

Slightly unrelated but I think that Facebook should setup a parent company that has a different name.

Whenever I see the phrase, "Facebook has acquired X" I can't help but think that the acquired company is both no longer trusted and not worth investing in or using. That might not be rational but they're just not the type of company that I think improves the value of their acquisitions.

kevincrane• 12 years ago

Comcast tried by rebranding much of itself as Xfinity a few years ago. As far as I know, it didn't do much to sway public few once people realized they were still the same thing.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/02/09/comcast-xfinity-id...

raldi• 12 years ago

The 1960 version of you might have asked, "Why the hell is AT&T playing with satellites?"

mark_l_watson• 12 years ago

Google's stated reason for the purchase makes sense, providing more internet connectivity, etc. I give them the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Off topic, but: my first two bosses at SAIC were Titan founders.

ams6110• 12 years ago

Read Spolsky's Strategy Letter V[1].

All else being equal, demand for a product increases when the prices of its complements decrease.

Internet access complements all of Google's other products. It is in their interest to commoditize it even further and make it cheaper. If I were Verizon and Comcast I'd be worried.

1: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html

stvn• 12 years ago

nothin' to see here folks. +movealong

yogi123• 12 years ago

The behavior of public technology companies that throw off lots of cash is entirely predictable. They are utterly shitty allocators of capital, esp when run by "visionaries." Some easy predictions:

-This acquisition will have zero to negative return on investment, just like Motorola.

-Oculus acquisition for 2B will have zero to negative return on capital

-WhatsApp will have zero to negative return on capital

The abuse of shareholder cash at cash-rich tech companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google is quite breathtaking to observe.

chaz• 12 years ago

These bets are easy because it's hard to figure out if you've won or lost. Among the challenges is that acquisitions like WhatsApp and Motorola can be more about stopping threats. WhatsApp had been adding ~1 million people a day, and if FB's mission is to connect people in the world, then WhatsApp could have become a serious competitor in a few years. The Motorola patent portfolio has been discussed, but there's a lot of potential for simple expertise in consumer goods that was acquired as well. Us outsiders will never really really know.

Since we're talking about tech companies and not airlines, the value of an acq is a lot more difficult than discounted future revenue. YouTube was much derided as a terrible acquisition for YouTube in 2006 -- a bandwidth money pit and a copyright nightmare. But it looks like it was a smart move.

What you describe does happen, though. Microsoft paid $6B to acquire aQuantive in 2007 and then wrote if all off in 2012.

3am• 12 years ago

Google has a pretty good track record with acquisitions (YouTube, Android, DoubleClick, Picasa... lots of smaller tuck-in acquisitions around their big products). The Motorola is an extremely poor example, because it was defensive against the Nortel patents/Rockstar consortium. Numerous analyses have shown it was very cost effective on a per-patent basis after taking into account Motorola's cash on hand, NOL credits, and the various parts of it they sold.

Edit: I couldn't find the terms of this deal, but the rumor was FB was offering $60M USD, so it's probably on that order of magnitude. I don't think it would be hard to make a business case for integrating this technology with Maps, making satellite view closer to real-time while reducing their bill for actual satellite imagery.

Google Acquires Titan Aerospace, The Drone Company Pursued By Facebook

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