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SantaCruzSentinel SANTA CRUZ There are some bright spots in 2020, one of which is the Google Cloud acquisition of Looker, a Santa Cruz data analytics company. Google LLC, owned by holding company Alpha- bet Inc., first announced in June 2019 it had entered into an agreement to ac- quire Looker. In February that acquisition was com- pleted for $2.6 billion. Looker was founded in 2012 and has more than 900 employees. The com- pany has offices in San Francisco, New York, Chi- cago, Boulder, Colorado; London, Dublin and To- kyo. Google Cloud is a cloud platform that uses Google's private network and mod- ernizes enterprise cus- tomers' computing envi- ronment. The companies formed a partnership four years ago. "Joining Google Cloud provides us better reach, strengthens our resources, and brings together some of the best minds in both analytics and cloud infra- structure to build an excit- ing path forward for our customers and partners," said Frank Bien, CEO of Looker, in February. "The mission that we undertook seven years ago as Looker takes a significant step for- ward beginning today." In the blog, Bien said Looker customers will still be able to choose from mul- tiple cloud data manage- ment systems, including Amazon Redshift, Azure SQL, Snowflake, Oracle and others. He said Looker partners can expect to work with the company as they did before the acqui- sition, and that customer support will be bolstered by the Google Cloud team. Bien thanked customers and partners for their sup- port and said he plans to make more announcements about business plans in the future. "And by joining to- gether, we believe we will be uniquely positioned to address the data analytics and business intelligence demands of even more en- terprises globally, across all industries," Thomas Ku- rian, CEO of Google Cloud wrote in a company blog post in February. "Looker will strengthen Google Cloud's analytics and data warehouse capabilities, in- cluding BigQuery, enabling our customers to address some of their toughest busi- ness challenges, faster — all while maintaining com- plete control of their data. We're thrilled to officially welcome the Looker team to Google Cloud." Some companies ex- pressed their support of the acquisition. "The combination of Google Cloud and Looker and their commitment to multi-cloud support will help deliver more value to customers faster," said Frank Slootman, CEO of cloud-based data company Snowflake, in the Google blog. "We look forward to our continued partnership with both companies." BUSINESS Google acquires Santa Cruz's Looker SANTA CRUZ SENTINEL — WILLIAM DUNCAN FILE Mary Dubois gets excited while opening a gi on her 105th birthday in May at her home in Santa Cruz. Together with her family and a few neighbors, Dubois celebrated her birthday in her front yard on Pelton Avenuein socially distanced fashion. Born in 1915, she remembers her grandfather wearing his mask in the 1918 flu pan- demic. When asked if she has any advice about life, she said, "Just remember to have fun. You can't live as long as I have without the help of your family and friends." She attributes her strong mind and wittiness to doing the crossword puzzle every day. CELEBRATION Socially distanced birthday "Joining Google Cloud provides us better reach, strengthens our resources, and brings together some of the best minds in both analytics and cloud infrastructure to build an exciting path forward for our customers and partners." — Frank Bien, CEO of Looker SHESNORESMORE THANIDO,BUTISTILL LOVEMYHUMAN. —BANDIT adopted11-26-09 You're there for Mom. We're here for you. Connect with experts and other caregivers aarp.org/caregiving 1.877.333.5885 FollowusonTwitterandFacebookforupdatesandmore. Readthestoriesatucsc.edu/highlights Alumna Laurie Garrett, Pulitzer Prize–winning pandemics expert, combats the spread of misinformation on COVID-19 Nobel laureate Carol Greider, eminent biologist and advocate for diversity in science, joins faculty FX sci-fi thrillerDevs found a perfect set in UC Santa Cruz Supporting the community with COVID-19 testing UCSC launched COVID-19 testing in May, serving the campus and community partners. A gift from Bud and Rebecca Colligan will expand testing capacity and help fund new lab space. Library shares historical photo collection of Santa Cruz County sites dating to 1866 Scientists achieve first complete assembly of human X chromosome Already vulnerable, gig economy workers in San Francisco suffer during coronavirus pandemic, survey reveals Trial by fire Threatened by wildfire, the UC Santa Cruz campus showed it is "Slug Strong" New climate record shows greenhouse gas emissions will cause much more warming than natural climate variability alone THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2020 SANTACRUZSENTINEL.COM | | 5 D