3 ms·
> the cost of keeping them must be at least 50 million per year. There's a high likelihood that at least some of their work will be of value to the company—or,
by nevir 8y ago
> the cost of keeping them must be at least 50 million per year.
There's a high likelihood that at least some of their work will be of value to the company—or, if everything pans out, they get a fancy new platform. The real motivation is probably somewhere in the middle (retention, product development).
This is a solid bet to make, especially when you are effectively not worried about the cost (thanks, ads!).
A lot of Google is heavily research focused like this: let engineers (mostly) freely explore complicated problem spaces. If it's a product—awesome!—see if there's market fit, and then grow it. If not, no problem; see where it, or parts thereof, can be applied elsewhere within Google.
Source: I worked there.
- dunpeal 8y agoSure, that's more reasonable. You're describing a match between business needs (the potential Android successor - quite an important business target) and a critical mass of senior engineers eager to work on the product. I'm sure Google is aware that more interesting and ambitious projects do tend to capture and hold the interest of the most talented engineers, and that figures into their business decisions. What I strongly dispute is this notion that such a project would be subsidized solely for retention. Everyone knows about big Google projects that were shut down when their business case lost its appeal. I've also seen much smaller projects shut down when their value proposition was no longer deemed sufficient, even when their members were talented, passionate, and at real risk of leaving once their project shut down.