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There was a really interesting interview [1] with Astro Teller, the head of Google's moonshot 'x division', in 2016. In terms of project selection, he focuses o
by somenameforme 3y ago
There was a really interesting interview [1] with Astro Teller, the head of Google's moonshot 'x division', in 2016. In terms of project selection, he focuses on trying to dismiss projects early on, by looking for reasons that a project might fail. And even rewarding employees for scrapping things early on. That doesn't sound particularly unreasonable, but it largely just amounts to a conservative planning process. So then what exactly is the difference between a 'moonshot' and a regular new project?
And so when you look at this sort of selection process it ends up being unsurprising that Google's 'moonshots' ended up being things like Waymo, Google watches, glasses, drone delivery, and so on. One of the largest companies in the world, with some of the deepest pockets in the world, and their 'moonshots' are things dozens of other companies are building as well. It seemed quite telling of the present and future of Google.
[1] - https://spectrum.ieee.org/astro-teller-captain-of-moonshots-at-x https://spectrum.ieee.org/astro-teller-captain-of-moonshots-...
- konschubert 3y agoBuilding the best self driving car in the world is amazing , come on!
- bobviolier 3y agoAt that time, others companies were not building most of those things though.
- LeonB 3y agoAnd those that were building were basically doing research, not refining a product that had achieved product market fit. The gp makes it sound like they were manufacturing widgets. The existence of others in the market is better described as “other people were also able to attract funding for the potential payoffs in that field.” It demands that google’s mopnshots need to be something no other investor has considered. The same comment translated to 1965 — “The US is trying to get to the moon? Well Russia is trying too. So I’d hardly call it a “moonshot” “ (Edited to change typo of “potential layoffs” to “potential payoffs”, possibly more fitting though)
- rvba 3y agoDid Astro Teller have any successful project? A lot of money was spent, but what are the results? Looking at the wikipedia page it seems this whole Google X thing is a place where senior people have fun, while the rest of the company is undetstaffed. (E.g. no money for human customer service)
- lawrenceyan 3y agoEveryone made fun of Google for self-driving and totally derided them for years. It only feels normal now because they took the risk and pulled everyone else in the industry forward.
- somenameforme 3y agoThis is not accurate. Wiki has a pretty reasonable page on self driving cars here [1], but you can also look to what led Google to go for Waymo to begin with. [2] Levandowski had already created a self driving motorcycle for a DARPA challenged in 2004. In 2008 Discovery contacted him for a show about it, but being unable to lend them the vehicle - he instead built a new self driving pizza delivery car for them. He asked Google if they wanted to participate in the show or get involved in self driving, but they were uninterested due to liability. After they show aired and went off without a hitch, they decided to get involved. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_self-driving_cars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_self-driving_cars [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waymo#Pribot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waymo#Pribot
- lawrenceyan 3y agohttps://www.wired.com/story/darpa-grand-challenge-2004-oral-history/ https://www.wired.com/story/darpa-grand-challenge-2004-oral-...