Data’s predictive power shaped Google’s response to its financial crisis

Evidence

Schmidt later boasted that as a result of their close quarters over the course of several months, he had instant access to better revenue figures than did his own financial planners. We do not know (and may never know) what other insights Schmidt might have gleaned from Patel about the predictive power of Google’s behavioral data stores, but there is no doubt that a deeper grasp of the predictive power of data quickly shaped Google’s specific response to financial emergency, triggering the crucial mutation that ultimately turned AdWords, Google, the internet, and the very nature of information capitalism toward an astonishingly lucrative surveillance project. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 237

Categorization

• QUESTION: Zuboff admits she cannot know what Schmidt learned from Patel — the causal link between the office-sharing and the mutation is asserted rather than evidenced. Worth noting as a soft spot in the argument.
• XREF: connects to: The 2000 dot-com crash abruptly ended Google’s fundraising confidence — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 223; Investment crisis at Google justified abandoning the user-service reciprocal relationship — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 230

Broader Connections

• Investment crisis at Google justified abandoning the user-service reciprocal relationship #expands (0.72) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 230