Android

Maps

Docs

Go

/shrug

I dunno, I think it’s fair to say they’ve had a few winners.

Android, by acquiring Android Inc. Maps, by acquiring Keyhole and Where 2 Technologies. Docs, by acquiring Upstartle. YouTube, by buying YouTube Inc.

Got any winners that they started themselves instead of acquiring?

Credit where it's due though: A lot of companies destroy their acquisitions, which hasn't happened in these cases.

Photos. More than 1B users at this point.

Okay, Drive/Docs/Photos qualifies I think. (But also fuck 'em for ruining Picasa :D) Google Workspaces has to be a money printer.

Go doesn't make them money directly. Similarly k8s is great, but doesn't make them money. (At best it's the classic commoditize your complement strategy. Though I have no idea where Go comes from. Well, I guess if you hire enough language developers you're bound to eventually get a new language, even if it's a bit meh, so they at least matched React in that.)

My feeling was Go was a project that came out of the idea of making a language to reflect the ethos of their C++ style guide from years ago. The focus on reducing complexity felt like a way to make it easy for them to hire/onboard grads etc.