The way I understood the 80% is that is the margin on the actual product. 36% is what remains after the “investments” in moonshot projects nobody asked for.
Wasn't it always somewhere between 20 to 30% (especially more recently in the 30s) but the real difference is, they're in the billions of dollars, your small business might be in the millions, it's quite a drastic difference altogether.
explain how GOOG's margin is 80%
what methodology do you use to derive that number?
just curious.