This is very revisionist. While they have been catching up quickly there was no master 4D chess strategy here. Google was incredibly late to this game - Sergey had to come back from retirement because most of the research team had a Sarah Connor complex and couldn’t ship. The saving grace is that AdWords picked up the tab again and founders shook the place up when it became clear the golden goose was being cooked.
> Sergey had to come back from retirement because most of the research team had a Sarah Connor complex and couldn’t ship.
What, you don't want to ship the Torment Nexus? You're fired! We must ship a Torment Nexus, we must maintain our market share even if it means our destruction!