If you’re having trouble sleeping this weekend, I suggest pouring over the entire 99-page report of Google’s 10-K for the 2011 fiscal year. It. Is. Dry.
However, the crew over at 9to5Google are more dedicated Google readers than I am and, from the document, tallied up that Google added 79 companies to their empire for the everyday low price of $2 billion. Some of the companies you might recognize: Motorola (this one’s still pending approval), ITA Software, AdMob, On2 Technologies, and a new office building in NYC (that’s kind of an unofficial acquisition, right?). In the document, Google claims that “These acquisitions generally enhance the breadth and depth of our expertise in engineering and other functional areas, our technologies, and our product offerings.”
The 9to5Google folks pointed out some other acquisitions that I didn’t find in the document: Zagat, DailyDeal, Dealmap, and Admeld.
With all those acquisitions happening, they’re not just gonna run themselves, are they? No, they’re not, so Google brought some more hands on deck in 2011 – over 32,000 pairs of hands, in fact, that were connected to 32,000 new employees.
And if you think this is big, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet because Google was clear about their plans for this year:
Our plans to continue to invest in systems, facilities, and infrastructure, increase our hiring, provide competitive compensation programs, and continue our current pace of acquisitions.
Place your bets now on which company will be carrying the Google banner by this time next year.