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Report: Google Developing New 'Area 120' Corporate Incubator (thenextweb.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the controlled-conditions dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The Information has released a new report about how Google is developing its own "startup incubator" called "Area 120." According to sources, the incubator will be helmed by Google executives Don Harrison and Bradley Horowitz. The way it will work is teams of Google employees will pitch their ideas for inclusion in Area 120. If a team's idea is approved, they will then be able to work full-time on their idea, and eventually start a new company after the business plan is created. The timing is unclear but the whole process will likely take several months. According to The Next Web, "The '120' in Area 120 is a homage to Google's famed '20 percent time,' which asks that employees spend one-fifth of their working hours on projects that excite them." Both Gmail and AdSense were a result of Google's 20 percent time workplace philosophy. The report claims Area 120 will be tied exclusively to Google, not its parent company, Alphabet. It also says it will remain separate from Google's Mountain View campus.

36 comments

  1. Huh? by liqu1d · · Score: 1

    Adsense was a side project? I thought this was how Google made most of its money.

    1. Re:Huh? by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 3, Informative

      Remember, Google was just a search engine to start with. And obviously, successful side projects don't stay side projects.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    2. Re: Huh? by liqu1d · · Score: 1

      For some reason I thought they were always monetised with ads. A rather successful side project in that case!

    3. Re: Huh? by shawn2772 · · Score: 2

      For some reason I thought they were always monetised with ads. A rather successful side project in that case!

      According to "In the Plex" by Steven Levy, even after Google moved off of the Stanford campus it wasn't monetized at all for the first year or two. It was supported by capital investments, and operated on a shoestring budget to keep those low. Page and Brin knew they needed to find a way to make it profitable, but had a hard time finding an approach they liked. They were strongly opposed to advertising, mostly because they found the dominant model of web advertising at the time (banner ads) to be really obnoxious.

      It took the combination of a few key ideas to make advertising as a business model acceptable to them. One was the idea that ads could be chosen that were related to the terms being searched for, hopefully making the ads useful to the users, and to rank the ads based on quality (measured by click-through rate, primarily). Another was to require the ads to be small, unobtrusive and text-only, so that users would have to look for them, rather than be blasted by them, and to maintain the clean, simple appearance of the search engine. A third was to charge only for clicks, rather than impressions, and to set the price with a real-time auction among relevant ads, essentially incorporating the advertisers' bids into the ranking system. That way the advertisers themselves which was conceptually cool, logistically convenient and ensured that advertisers would only pay what a click was actually worth to them. I don't know if Page and Brin understood it at the time, but they were solving a core problem advertisers have had since the dawn of advertising: to figure out exactly how effective their advertising budget was. With Google's system they paid only for the clicks that actually brought a visitor, and they could determine precisely how many of those visits converted to sales.

      The resulting system seemed to Page and Brin like a win for users, who got unobtrusive and possibly-useful ads, for advertisers, who got visitors who were highly likely to be interested in buying and got them for a reasonable cost, and for Google, who got a funding source that would allow the search engine to grow -- and eventually to do other things.

      It's worth pointing out, though, that Page and Brin saw advertising as an engineering solution to a business problem, how to generate revenue from the highly-successful search engine. They weren't ad men, never became ad men and never turned their company over to ad men. When it came time to hire a CEO, they hired an engineer from an engineering company, and they continued building out a technology-focused and engineer-heavy company culture, consistently ensuring that at least half of the employees were engineers and that nearly all of the management were engineers, at all levels and especially in the engineering departments. To date, Alphabet remains a technology company which is primarily funded by advertising technology, not an advertising company. Many might think that's a distinction without a difference, but it's not, because advertisers and engineers have fundamentally different views of the world and the problems they set out to solve.

      (Disclosure/disclaimer: I'm a Google engineer. I read "In the Plex" five years ago just after I joined the company and the historical info above is from memory and may contain significant errors. Corrections appreciated.)

    4. Re: Huh? by sexconker · · Score: 0

      Disclosure/disclaimer: I'm a Google engineer.

      You're a Google employee.

    5. Re: Huh? by just+another+AC · · Score: 2

      Disclosure/disclaimer: I'm a Google engineer.

      You're a Google employee.

      How do you know he/she doesn't specialise in "engineering Googles"?

    6. Re: Huh? by shawn2772 · · Score: 1

      Disclosure/disclaimer: I'm a Google engineer.

      You're a Google employee.

      Yes, I'm a Google employee and I'm an engineer, so I'm a Google engineer. A Google Senior Software Engineer, to be precise.

  2. Seen this movie before by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've worked in large corporations that announced, with great fanfare, a startup incubator that would be staffed by current employees, including engineers doing the work.

    One of them seemed to come up empty. The other did come up with one big project, created by a small startup competitor (probably one man operation) they acquired - in other words, it was arguably not even part of the program. The guy they acquired had done all the engineering work. Senior management loves talking about "innovation", though.

  3. Considering they took our 20% time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    long ago, this just sounds like pandering when they're saying it will return, but if you read between the lines, it's only returning for a tiny percentage of employees.

    1. Re: Considering they took our 20% time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Corporations always become Republican.

  4. Probably means 120% time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If we approve your project, you can spend an extra 8 hours working on it on top of your normal week.

  5. here's an idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    make your web search suck less

    also learn about UI

  6. 120?! by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 2

    HOLY CRAP! It's not a literal incubator! Turn on the air conditioning!!!

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  7. Let's not forget about Area 51... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2

    When I worked at the Google help desk in 2008, one of the old timers who trained the new staff members told us about Area 51, which was also called Building 51 on some of the older campus maps. That was the nickname for the Sports Page sports bar off of Shoreline Boulevard at the far edge of the campus. I was told then that Molly Magees Irish pub in downtown Mountain View was the go to spot for Goolgers at that time, but they had to be careful not to discuss business as Yahooers also hung out there.

    1. Re:Let's not forget about Area 51... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      When I worked at NEC back in the 1990's "Conference room 12" was the bar down the street from the office. It was actually in the conference room reservation system and we would set up meetings in Conference room 12. lol

    2. Re:Let's not forget about Area 51... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seriously, why would you ever go to Molly Magee's when St. Stephen's Green is right next door? Even Kapp's would've been better in those days.

    3. Re:Let's not forget about Area 51... by shawn2772 · · Score: 1

      In the Boulder, Colorado Google office we took a different approach: We built a couple of bars in the office, right next to the cubes. Yes, they are schedulable meeting rooms, as are the teepee and the VW micro bus. I think the bars got scheduled a lot more than the other "non-traditional" meeting rooms, though.

    4. Re:Let's not forget about Area 51... by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      At Apple, IL7 means BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse out front. I'm told that it used to mean the Peppermill back in the day.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  8. Lack of math skills by DesertNomad · · Score: 2

    Spend 20% of your time doing what excites you! (As long as it doesn't impact the 100% we pay you for...)

  9. 420 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Why not Area 420

    1. Re:420 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      because you have to be high to volunteer for area 120? :)

  10. Makes sense by inode_buddha · · Score: 1

    Makes sense. If corporations are people too, then they can have pussies to hatch out baby corps.

    --
    C|N>K
  11. We've seen it before. It goes like this: by technosaurus · · Score: 2

    AREA_120 ->(project builds a user base)-> AREA_404_NOT_FOUND

  12. Math by Livius · · Score: 1

    Shouldn't it be Area 125?

    1. Re:Math by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

      I always heard the joke that the famed 20% time had changed into 120% time. I.e. it changed from the old 20% time you're allowed to spend a day a week working on random stuff, provided you work 5 full days on your normal stuff.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  13. Seen this shit before by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Large companies try this every so often. If you have a good business idea then you're allowed to work on it full time for your current salary, but you'll be expected to put in the hours of a CEO in order to make the business work. If the business is successful, you get to go back to your old job, maybe you get a token raise (that won't come close to compensating you for all the extra work you put in), the company owns the new business, and you receive no equity or stock. If the new business fails (as most new businesses do), then there's a very serious chance that you'll be laid off because the company did just fine while you were away working on your side project and, besides, who wants to employ someone whose business failed?

    What usually happens is that most of the employees see this for the raw deal that it is, and don't participate. Maybe one or two gullible saps take part and work themselves into an early grave and/or get fired. A year and a half later, HR shuts down the program while simultaneously declaring it a massive success. Executives pat themselves on the back for being innovative, and accounting decides that Christmas bonuses won't be happening anymore because they need to recoup the costs of the side projects.

  14. Re:We've seen it before. It goes like this: by shawn2772 · · Score: 1

    AREA_120 ->(project builds a small user base)-> AREA_404_NOT_FOUND

    FTFY. If the user base in question is measured in hundreds of millions, it stays and grows. If it's small, and it becomes clear it's not going to grow, and it isn't profitable at the small scale, and it doesn't have any strong internal champions (which generally becomes the case if it's small, not growing and not profitable), it gets shut down, generally with a generous lead time, plenty of opportunity for users to extract their data and only after all contractual commitments (if any) are fulfilled.

    Of course, Google's definition of "small" is different from that of many other companies. It's definition of "profitable" is pretty standard for a large corporation, though.

  15. Re:We've seen it before. It goes like this: by technosaurus · · Score: 1

    Google Real Estate on Maps (for 1 example) _could_ have been quite profitable - AFAICT, no tool compares to it still. Things at Google tend to get shut down before they've had time to succeed (they never really advertised the real estate side of Maps). Completely shutting things down, instead of just putting them in a maintenance only mode, erodes trust with users that have integrated the tech into their lives and developers that made it possible with the work the put into interfacing with the API. I no longer waste my time with any Google APIs.

    Google isn't the only one, it happens when any tech company starts being run by bean counters who don't understand the intangible value of trust. I still think that Opera made a mistake shutting down Unite, it was just ahead of its time and users were just starting to figure it out when it was shut down.

  16. Confirmed for Illuminati. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Area 120 = Area 51 * 3 - 33

  17. Re:We've seen it before. It goes like this: by shawn2772 · · Score: 1

    Google Real Estate on Maps (for 1 example) _could_ have been quite profitable - AFAICT, no tool compares to it still. Things at Google tend to get shut down before they've had time to succeed (they never really advertised the real estate side of Maps).

    Google never really advertised *anything*, until fairly recently. That was one of the implicit criteria for success... a project had to be good enough to succeed without advertising.

    That said, I actually agree with you that Google projects often get shut down before they've had time to succeed. Other companies would stick with them for longer, but Google demands explosive success. I also agree that Google needs to support its APIs better and longer. I think a lot of that API instability is spillover from the internal culture of rapid change. The joke inside Google is that every time you need to do something you find there are two internal APIs that solve your problem: one of them deprecated and the other not quite finished.

    Google isn't the only one, it happens when any tech company starts being run by bean counters who don't understand the intangible value of trust.

    Wrong mechanism, in Google's case. Google isn't run by bean counters, in fact they have hardly any say at all. Instead, it's run by engineers who live on weekly release cycles and to whom two or three years is an eternity. I think the solution is to add more product management oversight, but there's a significant cost to that as well. Polish and stability are at odds with moving quickly and experimenting with new ideas. The problem is that people expect a company of Google's size to provide the former, but the company's culture is focused on the latter. That's gradually changing, but it's a tectonic shift that brings layers of bureaucracy and overhead.

  18. Sign that Google is getting too big by simula67 · · Score: 1

    Always wondered how big companies can build new innovative products. If someone truly has a good idea, in this day and age, they can always start their own company. Otherwise, they will be working long hours on their project so someone else can make the money. This may not appeal to many smart people. This might be the solution : ask them to start a company inside the parent company. Parent acts as an incubator, but the people working on the new project holds a majority stake in the child company and can influence the share price through their effort. If it doesn't work out, they can take return to a position inside the parent company. Might encourage even family men/women to build new, useful things.

    1. Re:Sign that Google is getting too big by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      Many people do not start their own company because they can't afford to not make any money during the development stages, and they don't want to simultaneously take on debt. Its risk to do so. If the company you work for is willing to take all that risk, then they get the reward, or pay the price of failure.

    2. Re:Sign that Google is getting too big by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      I think there's a bit more to it than having a good idea.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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  20. Expel Brahmin From USA by NewYork · · Score: 1

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    --
    Casteism