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Most of Google's robotics acquisitions were driven by Andy Rubin, who was trying to build a robotics division within Google. Once he left the company, it probab

by jonas21 11y ago

Most of Google's robotics acquisitions were driven by Andy Rubin, who was trying to build a robotics division within Google. Once he left the company, it probably left their future uncertain.

wpietri 11y ago
It's always a bad sign to me when a company's strategy lurches based on who's around rather than on changing external circumstances. It suggests to me that the strategy isn't a coherent, collectively understood plan, but a political balance.
- ansible 11y ago
  It suggests to me that the strategy isn't a coherent, collectively understood plan, but a political balance. I suspect that's the way it is... everywhere, all the time. That's been my experience.
  - ethbro 11y ago
    I think it's a stronger phenomenon in cutting edge areas, as there's less group-think to fall back on or use as a crutch. Everyone knew what to do with a typewriter, even if the visionary leader left. If the person who was saying that microcomputers were going to be the next big thing quit? Nobody else has that idea in their heads.
    - wpietri 11y ago
      Is this from a real-world example? Because I'd expect the opposite to be true. Cutting-edge areas tend to attract people there for the vision. And the harsh commercial realities of innovative markets mean companies get in trouble if they get complacent. Whereas people in larger, older companies in stable markets can let their vision die and just go on doing whatever worked before. At least until it doesn't work, and then they're screwed.
      - ethbro 11y ago
        In this instance, Google is a larger, older company. Or to extend the analogy, if someone goes to IBM as director for New Technology X, and then leaves five years later, what's the likelihood people in New Technology X Division are going to be able take his or her responsibilities over? Big companies are big companies and they usually don't encourage or reward employees overly much for striking out in a brave new direction. Which is hilarious given that they'll continously try and hire exactly those people externally. Though I suppose you honestly can't encourage too much rebellion when you make your money from a crank being turned (and happen to need 1,000 bodies to just shut up, turn the crank, and get paid).
  - georgeecollins 11y ago
    It is often true, but not always true. I have worked at or worked with companies that could express their strategy. But usually they are not big multi-division companies like Alphabet.
  - wpietri 11y ago
    I think it's the common mode in American business culture the last few decades, but I think that's a result of the managerialist paradigm that has come to dominate. Most startups avoid it to begin with. There's a really strong incentive for having a clear mission and high customer focus; many things get easier. Wikipedia has done a good job with "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." Toyota has done a fantastic job organizing around the Toyota Production System. The best restaurants, bakeries, and the like generally have strong shared understandings. The same is often true of multi-generational family firms. I think even Google did a good job for a long time rallying around "organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful". Which makes this especially sad to me. Around the time of Google Plus and "more wood behind fewer arrows" I think there was a culture shift that is probably irreversible.
    - lovemenot 11y ago
      >> I think it's the common mode in American business culture the last few decades Agreed. I find it doesn't hold for most contemporary Japanese corporations though. Their leaders tend to be switchable placeholders whose main purpose is to efficiently represent a consensus view. Interestingly, though they do have momentum, they seem to lack strategic direction. Perhaps only charismatic leaders can provide the latter. Japan can produce such people (e.g. Morita at Sony) but the current environment values continuity over vision.
      - wpietri 11y ago
        Very interesting. I suspect that Toyota is a similar result of a visionary leader. I want to believe there's some way to get the benefits of both approaches at scale, but I have yet to see an example. Do you have anything you'd suggest I read to get a better understanding of the current Japanese situation? Most of my knowledge is about historic Toyota, which I'm sure gives me a distorted view.
        lovemenot 11y ago
        >> Do you have anything you'd suggest I read Sorry, my opinion is formed only by observation and discussion with related parties. I don't have any direct experience of Toyota, except with one of their trading company's subsidiaries. Uniquely, this company does have a visionary leader at the helm, yet I believe there is no correlation with the parent's leadership style because Toyota Tsucho is run at arms length. My rather uninformed opinion of Toyota Motors is that they are succeeding exactly as other Japanese companies used to succeed. If this is right, and I hope not, then they may be fated to see the same stagnation in time. A more optimistic view is that Toyota have something unique. If so, I don't believe it to be charismatic leadership. It would be baked into their culture. Of note is Toyota's recent decision to invest $1B in AI research in Silicon Valley and Boston. They are trying to get ahead of the coming tech for autonomous driving and factory automation. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/06/technology/toyota-silicon-valley-artificial-intelligence-research-center.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/06/technology/toyota-silicon-...
- sdenton4 11y ago
  Yeah, but we're talking about shaping the future here: If you're relying on external circumstances for your hints as to what to do next, you're just reacting to the present....
daok 11y ago
That is very odd for me. How come a single man can change the faith of such a huge company in 2016.
- rkalla 11y ago
  It makes more sense once you take on a senior level role in those big companies, you start to see how a single, charismatic and convincing person can mentally mobilize (over a period of time) a large group of people to align with their hopes and dreams. I was baffled by this as well, until I got closer to it and got to see "how the sausage is made". It is amazing what a confident, strong personality can do in a group of people in _any_ setting.
  - siscia 11y ago
    What is this "How the sausage is made" you are talking about ? Is a video you can share ?
    - ascorbic 11y ago
      It's a quote, with an uncertain source. "Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made"
    - jon-wood 11y ago
      Not the OP, but its an English idiom rougly meaning everyone loves sausages until they see what goes into them, at which point they lose their charm.
    - bglazer 11y ago
      "How the sausage is made" is an American idiom. Generally, it means "a process that makes a good thing but is chaotic or messy". We say this because sausage is tasty, but most people prefer not to see all the animal parts being ground up and stuffed into an intestine.
      - cubano 11y ago

by jonas21 11y ago

Most of Google's robotics acquisitions were driven by Andy Rubin, who was trying to build a robotics division within Google. Once he left the company, it probably left their future uncertain.

wpietri 11y ago

It's always a bad sign to me when a company's strategy lurches based on who's around rather than on changing external circumstances. It suggests to me that the strategy isn't a coherent, collectively understood plan, but a political balance.

ansible 11y ago
It suggests to me that the strategy isn't a coherent, collectively understood plan, but a political balance. I suspect that's the way it is... everywhere, all the time. That's been my experience.
- ethbro 11y ago
  I think it's a stronger phenomenon in cutting edge areas, as there's less group-think to fall back on or use as a crutch. Everyone knew what to do with a typewriter, even if the visionary leader left. If the person who was saying that microcomputers were going to be the next big thing quit? Nobody else has that idea in their heads.
  - wpietri 11y ago
    Is this from a real-world example? Because I'd expect the opposite to be true. Cutting-edge areas tend to attract people there for the vision. And the harsh commercial realities of innovative markets mean companies get in trouble if they get complacent. Whereas people in larger, older companies in stable markets can let their vision die and just go on doing whatever worked before. At least until it doesn't work, and then they're screwed.
    - ethbro 11y ago
      In this instance, Google is a larger, older company. Or to extend the analogy, if someone goes to IBM as director for New Technology X, and then leaves five years later, what's the likelihood people in New Technology X Division are going to be able take his or her responsibilities over? Big companies are big companies and they usually don't encourage or reward employees overly much for striking out in a brave new direction. Which is hilarious given that they'll continously try and hire exactly those people externally. Though I suppose you honestly can't encourage too much rebellion when you make your money from a crank being turned (and happen to need 1,000 bodies to just shut up, turn the crank, and get paid).
- georgeecollins 11y ago
  It is often true, but not always true. I have worked at or worked with companies that could express their strategy. But usually they are not big multi-division companies like Alphabet.
- wpietri 11y ago
  I think it's the common mode in American business culture the last few decades, but I think that's a result of the managerialist paradigm that has come to dominate. Most startups avoid it to begin with. There's a really strong incentive for having a clear mission and high customer focus; many things get easier. Wikipedia has done a good job with "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." Toyota has done a fantastic job organizing around the Toyota Production System. The best restaurants, bakeries, and the like generally have strong shared understandings. The same is often true of multi-generational family firms. I think even Google did a good job for a long time rallying around "organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful". Which makes this especially sad to me. Around the time of Google Plus and "more wood behind fewer arrows" I think there was a culture shift that is probably irreversible.
  - lovemenot 11y ago
    >> I think it's the common mode in American business culture the last few decades Agreed. I find it doesn't hold for most contemporary Japanese corporations though. Their leaders tend to be switchable placeholders whose main purpose is to efficiently represent a consensus view. Interestingly, though they do have momentum, they seem to lack strategic direction. Perhaps only charismatic leaders can provide the latter. Japan can produce such people (e.g. Morita at Sony) but the current environment values continuity over vision.
    - wpietri 11y ago
      Very interesting. I suspect that Toyota is a similar result of a visionary leader. I want to believe there's some way to get the benefits of both approaches at scale, but I have yet to see an example. Do you have anything you'd suggest I read to get a better understanding of the current Japanese situation? Most of my knowledge is about historic Toyota, which I'm sure gives me a distorted view.
      - lovemenot 11y ago
        >> Do you have anything you'd suggest I read Sorry, my opinion is formed only by observation and discussion with related parties. I don't have any direct experience of Toyota, except with one of their trading company's subsidiaries. Uniquely, this company does have a visionary leader at the helm, yet I believe there is no correlation with the parent's leadership style because Toyota Tsucho is run at arms length. My rather uninformed opinion of Toyota Motors is that they are succeeding exactly as other Japanese companies used to succeed. If this is right, and I hope not, then they may be fated to see the same stagnation in time. A more optimistic view is that Toyota have something unique. If so, I don't believe it to be charismatic leadership. It would be baked into their culture. Of note is Toyota's recent decision to invest $1B in AI research in Silicon Valley and Boston. They are trying to get ahead of the coming tech for autonomous driving and factory automation. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/06/technology/toyota-silicon-valley-artificial-intelligence-research-center.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/06/technology/toyota-silicon-...
sdenton4 11y ago
Yeah, but we're talking about shaping the future here: If you're relying on external circumstances for your hints as to what to do next, you're just reacting to the present....

daok 11y ago

That is very odd for me. How come a single man can change the faith of such a huge company in 2016.

rkalla 11y ago
It makes more sense once you take on a senior level role in those big companies, you start to see how a single, charismatic and convincing person can mentally mobilize (over a period of time) a large group of people to align with their hopes and dreams. I was baffled by this as well, until I got closer to it and got to see "how the sausage is made". It is amazing what a confident, strong personality can do in a group of people in _any_ setting.
- siscia 11y ago
  What is this "How the sausage is made" you are talking about ? Is a video you can share ?
  - ascorbic 11y ago
    It's a quote, with an uncertain source. "Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made"
  - jon-wood 11y ago
    Not the OP, but its an English idiom rougly meaning everyone loves sausages until they see what goes into them, at which point they lose their charm.
  - bglazer 11y ago
    "How the sausage is made" is an American idiom. Generally, it means "a process that makes a good thing but is chaotic or messy". We say this because sausage is tasty, but most people prefer not to see all the animal parts being ground up and stuffed into an intestine.
    - cubano 11y ago