Google has $40 billion of cash in the bank. It can spend that money on a number of interesting things, and spend that money it does.
Google will pay $30 million to the first non-government person who lands a robot on the moon. The Internet giant laid out $300 million to plant wind farms in California, Oregon and North Dakota. It stuffed $10 million into the pockets of lobbyists to influence legislation. So far, Google has shoveled $800 million into a Kansas City scheme to lay high-speed fiber optics.
Google bought Motorola Mobility in 2011 for more than $12 billion. The investment is designed to upgrade Google’s Android system and eventually challenge Apple. Robot cars, which are legal only in Nevada, received $20 million in investment money from Google.
Google has poured $700 million into Google+ in an effort to challenge the domination of Facebook as a social networking site. Google+ has won over 100 million users since the summer of 2011.
