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Tucked inside the Q1 earnings report issued yesterday by Google parent company Alphabet was an eye-opening figure about the company’s rapid growth: Alphabet added almost 5,000 employees last quarter, finishing March with 85,050 employees. Some 2,000 engineers came as part of a one-time, $1.1 billion “acqhire” deal of the smartphone firm HTC. Alphabet made $9 billion in profit on $31 billion in first-quarter revenue, up 26 percent year over year, and exceeding expectations. [Dan Frommer / Recode]
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Alphabet’s earning call served up two other interesting numbers: Because of a one-time accounting change, we finally know how much Google subsidiary Nest makes. The smart-home gadget brand generated $726 million in revenue last year and an operating loss of $621 million; it still hasn’t passed $1 billion in sales and isn’t close to being profitable on an operating basis. And YouTube said that its computers successfully intercepted some 4.5 million objectionable videos last quarter before anyone saw them. But some of its billion-plus users saw another 1.5 million clips — in just three months — that ultimately needed to be pulled off the site. [Dan Frommer / Recode]
Facebook published the exact set of rules that Facebook employees and contractors use to decide what is allowed on the social service and what isn’t. Along with the longer and more detailed guidelines on discerning nudity, violence and hate speech, the company is also rolling out a new appeals process so that anyone can appeal the removal of their post or photo. [Kurt Wagner / Recode]
Twitter stock is up about 115 percent over the past year — better than Google, Facebook and Amazon. It’s still the same company — its user base is still not really growing, nor is year-over-year revenue; it hasn’t launched any major new products, and while it’s biggest problem, user abuse, seems to be improving, it’s certainly not fixed. So why is its stock up? Two words: Profitability and engagement, meaning Twitter may have finally transitioned from a company measured by growth to a company measured by value. We’ll see when it reports Q1 earnings tomorrow morning. [Kurt Wagner / Recode]
Chinese ride-hail player Didi Chuxing is going after U.S. rival Uber in a market where it will hurt. It just launched its service in Mexico, an Uber stronghold. [Johana Bhuiyan / Recode]
Amazon is working on robots for the home that can navigate from room to room like driverless cars. The company hopes to begin seeding the robots in employees’ homes by the end of this year, and potentially with consumers as early as 2019. [Mark Gurman and Brad Stone / Bloomberg]
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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
