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Google 'Wasting' $16 Billion On Projects Headed Nowhere
hapworth writes "Google's engineering culture is 'wasting profits,' according to a new report published today that refers to $16 billion worth of Google projects that are going nowhere. According to the analysis, it's not that the ideas — such as the Kansas City Fiber Project, driverless cars, and other engineering efforts — are bad. Rather, it's Google's poor execution that is killing the company and adding billions of dollars worth of projects to its 'trash pile.'" On the obvious other hand, Google's done a lot of interesting things over the years that they've managed to make work well, and that strayed from their initial single-text-field search bar.
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
-Thomas Edison
Jesus saves and takes half damage.
I think it may be more of a case of: "These people are doing something new, and it scares us, with our conservative, slow progress, get money now priorities!"
Nah, the way I read the article is not that they are faulting Google for trying things out. They are faulting the execution of things, pulling the plug before shit even becomes realized. In R&D (even commercial ones), it makes no sense to spend hundreds of millions, billions, on stuff that gets killed prematurely. To dole that kind of money, people need to look beyond two-quarter time lapses. And if they can't (or aren't willing to), then they shouldn't dole that kind of moolah.
The corollary of this is that if you are going big on R&D, you need to look at it long term, you need to abandon the idea that you'll reap the dividends within a year or two.
Absolutely. They do really fundamental stuff actually. Including things like topological quantum computing. Not going to yield a product this decade or next, but at the cutting edge of the interface between physics and mathematics.
(http://stationq.ucsb.edu/research.html)