

What’s Driving Google’s Wild Moonshots? Desperation - x43b
http://www.wired.com/2014/04/desperation-is-driving-google-to-invent-our-crazy-future/

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dm2
Google has money, brilliant engineers/software developers, and visionary
leaders who want to progress humanity, that's why it's doing moonshots.

It's moonshots help recruit more of the top engineers and developers to work
for the company.

The high risk / high reward moonshots help fuel competition and keep the
company from becoming boring and stagnant. A small number of them might even
generate massive revenue in the future, but nobody is stressing if they don't,
at least they tried and the research gained is still very valuable.

If companies didn't constantly try to push the boundaries of what's possible
we wouldn't have ANY of the awesome technology and gadgets we have now. Look
at DARPA, same philosophy as Google X Labs, it's most successful moonshot was
the Internet. Thank you Google for continuing to think outside-the-box and for
trying to develop what other companies are too scared to attempt.

Google is developing things such as self-driving cars because that technology
needs to be built and is largely a software problem. They have several
advantages such as their massive amount of engineering talent and their Maps
databases which are playing a key role in the self-driving vehicles.

Don't forget all of the research that Google employees do on a wide variety of
subjects. Test products such as Google Glass isn't for everyone, but it has
several uses-cases which would make it valuable and it was undoubtedly worth
trying.

Why would anyone not support companies like Google? The company doesn't harm
people, creates amazing technology, inspires millions, employees tens of
thousands, and has made the world a better place.

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funkyy
Google is becoming mature corporation. Nothing new here. The same way Facebook
will go. You cant just grow forever. There is a point where you will stop and
realize that your strong brand might be vulnerable to markets humors. They are
reinventing themselves so they can diversify portfolio. The method is pretty
unique though.

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im3w1l
I am reminded of PG's essay on black swan farming
[http://paulgraham.com/swan.html](http://paulgraham.com/swan.html)

They are probably playing the same game with these moon shots.

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coldtea
We used to call it "throw some shit to a wall and see what sticks" back in my
day.

Doesn't have any better chances when you do it with billions.

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czr80
This is my theory, just idle speculation:

I don't think Google is desperate. I think Google is a personal playground for
Larry and Sergey to invest in whatever takes their fancy - they have the
money, and they don't answer to shareholders, given Google's unusual voting
structure.

Sadly, they seem to favor flashy but questionable technology demonstrations
(self-driving cars, glass, ara). Which is not to deny that some of the
spending has been great (street view, google translate, etc.) They're no Bell
labs, though, or IBM in its heyday, which is a real shame.

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eurleif
Why do you think self-driving cars are questionable? Maybe I've missed
something, but it seems very plausible to me that they will take off; and even
if Google didn't profit directly from the cars, their core business would
profit from people having more free time to stare at a screen.

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dm2
Many people are on the complete opposite side of the spectrum. I personally
believe that autonomous vehicles are undoubtedly the future. They'll save an
enormous amount of lives, allow new businesses to be created, eliminate the
need for a drivers license (bye DMV), reduce insurance costs, and allow people
to work, socialize, and actually have meals in vehicles (can turn the seats
around and put a table in the middle). There are probably dozens of advantages
that I missed in this post, but I don't see any reason to not aggressively
pursue this technology.

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_hadrian_
Xerox squandered a lot of what was invented at Parc, but the completion of the
development of the laser printer more than paid back the years of investment.

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sscalia
The most terrifying reality Google faces is that it cannot effectively
productize any of these "moonshots" it's working on.

That includes Glass, Self-Driving Cars, Drones, and all the other superfluous
stuff they're throwing money at.

My suggestion -- focus -- on search. Redefine how we find information again;
we're still looking at blue links on a white background with pagination.

In that regard, Google's been stagnant for over 10 years.

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mark_l_watson
I think the Knowledge Graph technology, which I used while I was a contractor,
is very good. I think that Knowledge Graph will continue to make Google Now
more awesome/useful and help somewhat with search results.

The SaaS/PaaS business will also be huge, but I think Google has a long climb
uphill competing with Amazon, IBM, etc.

And, if Google makes a real AI then the value of the company goes through the
roof.

