Google Invests in Recorded Future

Posted on 04. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey in Features, News

The Google Ventures subsidiary has made an investment in a company called Recorded Future, and if the name of the company is not interesting enough, it’s what the company’s focus is that really makes you think. They are an analytics company that uses metrics to try to predict future events, whether they are stock market trends or terrorist attacks.

I’d like to include the generic weatherman joke to what Recorded Future does, since most meteorologists don’t get fired for being wrong on their predictions. But one thing that keeps popping up in my head is the fact that Google has certainly toyed with the idea of using their search data to leverage what is going on in the stock market. Eric Schmidt, while speaking at a conference in Abu Dhabi in March:

“One day we had a conversation where we figured we could just try to predict the stock market. And then we decided it was illegal. So we stopped doing that.”

This coupled with the fact that Google has been approved to trade in the U.S.’s regulated energy markets has to say something. Sure, the goal with that is to keep Google’s power costs down. But in the effort to “organize the world’s information”, does Google perhaps know too much? They likely do, but what needs to be focused on is how they utilize that information.

Until further notice, I believe in Google’s mission. They really have done something so different with their business it always stops and makes me think about how much better they have done in certain facets of the things that they do, and sometimes I wonder if anyone can really compete with them just because the bar is set so high.

I believe in free markets and if they can continue to do what their doing in an honorable way I’m all for it. Just don’t be surprised to hear the FTC is constantly investigating them because they feel the playing field is unfair.

With that being said, take a look at a rundown on what Google Ventures has invested in so far.