How Will Apple React To Google’s $3 Billion Nest Deal?

Probably by doing nothing differently.

Just because Larry Page is on an aggressive investment rampage — Waze, Über, now ex-Apple exec Tony Fadell’s Nest — that shouldn’t change the Apple playbook: Say no a hundred times more than you say yes, maniacal focus, mostly tack-on acquisitions, etc.

Does that limit Apple’s potential influence on society and potential sales growth? Sure, I guess. But not more than one more iPod/iPhone/iPad-level product could change things. And while Google’s spending spree is fun to watch, and Google is generally great at acquisitions, Motorola is still, for example… Motorola.

The big, long-term risk is if all of these new Google things work together so well that no one wants to buy anything Apple makes anymore — a true, zero-sum platform monopoly. A more immediate risk could be that Google suddenly becomes such an exciting place to work that no one brilliant wants to work at Apple anymore. Neither of these seems imminent. (And now that pre-exit Nest stock options are no longer on the table, there goes that brain drain, too?)

Google, it seems, wants to be everything. Apple just wants to be Apple. I could actually see them playing better together this way than before.

Also: Nest And The Apple-Fication Of Everything