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I'm no businessman, but does anyone else feel this will kill a lot of potential innovation? Not every project pays dividends immediately, and some are worth pur

I'm no businessman, but does anyone else feel this will kill a lot of potential innovation? Not every project pays dividends immediately, and some are worth pursuing even at a long-term loss. (imagine if we all had fiber today and bandwidth was ridiculously abundant. Just how different would the internet be, just as when electricity became abundant?) Also I understand that Google is a business, but the need for a business model for research might stymy forays into interesting tangents. (I can't currently list any, but history is full of examples of things that were invented while looking for a solution to a different problem) Sure a company shouldn't be hemorrhaging money or throwing it at anything that moves, but it also shouldn't be completely beholden to (my generalization of) investors who can be quite short-term-thinking and risk-averse.

Mahn 10y ago
I don't imagine that Google will become super conservative and short sighted overnight; it's probably more about managing moonshots a bit more closely rather than not betting in them at all. It wouldn't be Google if they stopped placing bets that don't pay off immediately.
digi_owl 10y ago
Very much so. Michael Dell effectively rescued his company from board room rampant shorttermism some years back because of just such a problem. And we basically witnessed Nokia and HP effectively crash and burn because of boardroom demands for short term profits while the execs were trying to pull of long term "pivots".
flinty 10y ago
Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. Short(shorter than usualy for Google) term financial motives kill any far fetched ideas from ever having a chance. Wall Street demands up and to the right movement every 3 months. Companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Apple try to have their own internal cadence of some goals in 3-5 years. Google had 10+ year projects but from the sounds of this article and what has been happening in the past year or so that leash is being shortened drastically. Sad day but I guess every company has to eventually grow up. Maybe another contender will emerge for long range innovation.
tzakrajs 10y ago
Not only this but people come and apply at Google because of the moonshots, not the ad business.

Mahn 10y ago

I don't imagine that Google will become super conservative and short sighted overnight; it's probably more about managing moonshots a bit more closely rather than not betting in them at all. It wouldn't be Google if they stopped placing bets that don't pay off immediately.

digi_owl 10y ago

Very much so. Michael Dell effectively rescued his company from board room rampant shorttermism some years back because of just such a problem. And we basically witnessed Nokia and HP effectively crash and burn because of boardroom demands for short term profits while the execs were trying to pull of long term "pivots".

flinty 10y ago

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. Short(shorter than usualy for Google) term financial motives kill any far fetched ideas from ever having a chance. Wall Street demands up and to the right movement every 3 months. Companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Apple try to have their own internal cadence of some goals in 3-5 years. Google had 10+ year projects but from the sounds of this article and what has been happening in the past year or so that leash is being shortened drastically. Sad day but I guess every company has to eventually grow up. Maybe another contender will emerge for long range innovation.

tzakrajs 10y ago

Not only this but people come and apply at Google because of the moonshots, not the ad business.