I remember reading at the beginning of the year that Google wants to change the way they are organized, in order to stop their employees who were frustrated with their bureaucracy from defecting to Facebook and other start-ups. A possible form would be similar to the advertising group/holdings, where each agency has a lot of autonomy.
I think it's feasible to do that at Google if the infrastructure group would be spun off as a stand-alone entity (let's call it Google Ops) that can offer resources and consulting to any product group. When a new product is started, it would be similar to a start-up: 3 people in a room in the Googleplex who could choose to work with Google Ops, Amazon EC2, or something else. And Google would own a majority stake in this "start-up" and it would give them a certain budget (up to $1M - $10M).
I think it's feasible to do that at Google if the infrastructure group would be spun off as a stand-alone entity (let's call it Google Ops) that can offer resources and consulting to any product group. When a new product is started, it would be similar to a start-up: 3 people in a room in the Googleplex who could choose to work with Google Ops, Amazon EC2, or something else. And Google would own a majority stake in this "start-up" and it would give them a certain budget (up to $1M - $10M).