5 ms·

Firespotter, a Google Ventures funded incubator

33 points by turoczy 15y ago

adrianwaj 15y ago
Instead of 20% free time, it's 100% free time, and they get to own a chunk of what they make. Smart way to outsource R&D by pre-owning a stake in what could be the next big thing, without the complexities and competition of acquisition. I think they should just build what's getting funded at the time, and not get too crazy. A fast (and better) follower mentality.
endtwist 15y ago
"Firespotter isn’t an incubator. We aren’t looking for ideas or teams to back. We will instead be building products that we want to use ourselves and quickly get them out into the world."[1] [1] http://www.firespotter.com/blog http://www.firespotter.com/blog
- razin 15y ago
  This sounds a lot like what Bill Gross' Idealab does http://www.idealab.com/ http://www.idealab.com/
mpakes 15y ago
The video on their 'Contact' page is particularly well done: http://www.firespotter.com/contact-us http://www.firespotter.com/contact-us The narration is a series of excerpts from the 'Wave Speech' passage in Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, written about the hippie movement in San Francisco. Apropos. Kudos to Alex Cornell, who apparently made it.
lotusleaf1987 15y ago
There really is an unwritten law somewhere that Google must and will expand into every possible web-related business category. They look more like Yahoo and AOL to me. Jobs says it best: People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the 100 other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done.
- arkitaip 15y ago
  I guess that means that IBM - doing pretty much everything in IT - will fail any day now.
  - lotusleaf1987 15y ago
    But IBM has a focus--business to business. You could argue Google's focus is advertising, regardless Google is much more aggressive than IBM or any other company in expanding into ever semi-related web category.
benmccann 15y ago
The TechCrunch article gives a lot more detail about what they're doing than their own site does: http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/04/google-voice-ceo-craig-walker-launches-firespotter-a-google-ventures-funded-incubator/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/04/google-voice-ceo-craig-walk...
robertgaal 15y ago
How do you guys think this actually works in a sense of equity? Google Ventures gets a stake in Firespotter. What happens if they spin-off one of their ideas into a new company? I take it Google Ventures is still involved then, right? Why invest otherwise?

33 points by turoczy 15y ago

Instead of 20% free time, it's 100% free time, and they get to own a chunk of what they make. Smart way to outsource R&D by pre-owning a stake in what could be the next big thing, without the complexities and competition of acquisition. I think they should just build what's getting funded at the time, and not get too crazy. A fast (and better) follower mentality.

endtwist 15y ago

"Firespotter isn’t an incubator. We aren’t looking for ideas or teams to back. We will instead be building products that we want to use ourselves and quickly get them out into the world."[1] [1] http://www.firespotter.com/blog http://www.firespotter.com/blog

razin 15y ago
This sounds a lot like what Bill Gross' Idealab does http://www.idealab.com/ http://www.idealab.com/

mpakes 15y ago

The video on their 'Contact' page is particularly well done: http://www.firespotter.com/contact-us http://www.firespotter.com/contact-us The narration is a series of excerpts from the 'Wave Speech' passage in Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, written about the hippie movement in San Francisco. Apropos. Kudos to Alex Cornell, who apparently made it.

lotusleaf1987 15y ago

There really is an unwritten law somewhere that Google must and will expand into every possible web-related business category. They look more like Yahoo and AOL to me. Jobs says it best: People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the 100 other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done.

arkitaip 15y ago
I guess that means that IBM - doing pretty much everything in IT - will fail any day now.
- lotusleaf1987 15y ago
  But IBM has a focus--business to business. You could argue Google's focus is advertising, regardless Google is much more aggressive than IBM or any other company in expanding into ever semi-related web category.

benmccann 15y ago

The TechCrunch article gives a lot more detail about what they're doing than their own site does: http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/04/google-voice-ceo-craig-walker-launches-firespotter-a-google-ventures-funded-incubator/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/04/google-voice-ceo-craig-walk...

robertgaal 15y ago

How do you guys think this actually works in a sense of equity? Google Ventures gets a stake in Firespotter. What happens if they spin-off one of their ideas into a new company? I take it Google Ventures is still involved then, right? Why invest otherwise?