Sundar Pichai: belief

Transcript context

…Because just having a team, arguably, was a huge benefit to Alphabet and Google. Just the fact that you kept investing in it, and then it hit a moment in time where this technology lift-off was more than worth it, and was very smart and forward-thinking. I just think it's interesting to ask, how does that apply to other domains? Because to your point on robotics, it seems like with robotics, we'll potentially have a different history where you can move very quickly now. Do you folks think about re-internalizing hardware again, or is it largely going to be a partner-driven model to bringing this stuff to the world? I think we'd keep a very open mind. My lesson from Waymo and on the AI side with TPUs, et cetera, I need to really push the curve well, particularly in areas where you have safety, regulatory, everything. You want the first-hand experience of the product feedback cycle. I think having first-party hardware will end up being very important. That's how I would say right at this stage. Sorry, I have two more capital allocation questions. Can you make the case that Google has historically been under-levered, where Google has historically carried a strong net cash position? Given that both Google has more ideas than it knows what to do with, it's just brimming with good ideas, and just the core business grows very durably, and I think Google clearly has a very good understanding of that core business, and it has grown at a higher rate than Google's cost of capital. As you look back on it, should Google have been more leaned in and said, "Okay, we will be willing to have a leveraged position that's slightly more aggressive than strong unit cash, and we will put that towards new initiatives, or just buy more of this core Google business for Google shareholders, or do more minority investing, which again, Google seems to have been best in class at?"…

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