The point of Bell Labs was to save the Bell System money. That's why they developed the transistor, Unix, and all the rest: because the cost to run Bell Labs wa

The point of Bell Labs was to save the Bell System money. That's why they developed the transistor, Unix, and all the rest: because the cost to run Bell Labs was less than the cost-savings of the inventions it produced when amortized over their whole, enormous, system. I don't see any major cost-savings that Google could have gained from hella cool four-legged robots but maybe I just don't have the imagination.