5 ms·

Is Google X anything more than a PR heavy version of Xerox PARC or any other R&D lab that tech companies have had?

by IBM 12y ago

magicalist 12y ago
Google Brain apparently came out of there, so I'd say definitely not. The other projects have always been longer term, and it seems silly to ask why self-driving cars aren't done yet when it was never expected for them to be done yet.
psbp 12y ago
Well, at least three of its products are being used in the real world (Glass, Loon, Self-driving cars) and at least one is actually being sold (Glass), so yes.
- ChuckMcM 12y ago
  So you are saying it share's PARC's affinity for inventing things that were both difficult to manufacture and not economically viable? (Only half joking there) I think it interesting that Sebastian left, he's a smart guy and I think he understood what he could do wielding Google X as a tool, that he left means he figured he could do get more of what he wanted to do outside the confines of Google X than he could with it. That makes for a really interesting thought exercise. And that brings us back to PARC, which discovered that the people who left PARC had a bigger impact outside of the lab than in it. The reasons for that were many but mostly they consisted of Xerox not actually being a 'research' company so much as it was a 'copier' company. What does that say about Google X?
- gress 12y ago
  Glass is a botched PR stunt, not world-changing research. So this underscores the GP's point.
- stonogo 12y ago
  I think you typed "yes" where you meant "no." Tech company R&D gave us things like the transistor and lasers (both from AT&T) and Mandelbrot fractals and hard drives and the entire concept of a relational database (all from IBM). PARC in specific gave us Ethernet, which I think is safe to describe as "being used in the real world." Google has a long way to go; so far, all of its real contributions have been in software, and all of their hardware R&D has seen very little "real world" deployment. Otherwise it's very much just a well-marketed implementation of traditional corporate R&D.
  - walshemj 12y ago
    And fibre optics from Martesham and before that Colossus from Dollis Hill
ThisIBereave 12y ago
Do you mean PARC circa 1970s?
krschultz 12y ago
You say that like it is a bad thing.
georgemcbay 12y ago
Probably not, but isn't that enough these days when so few companies do any sort of long-term bluesky R&D?
julianpye 12y ago
My former boss (CTO of Panasonic) once told me that the only way to do real R&D is to have a monopoly that allows you to hide the margins in cutting edge R&D. Everyone else was doing just product development. Google X is amazing in that it is about the only one left doing true bluesky R&D. Everyone else is just doing product development.
- cbhl 12y ago
  What about Microsoft Research?
  - rasz_pl 12y ago
    http://www.eweek.com/it-management/microsoft-lays-off-2100-closes-research-lab.html http://www.eweek.com/it-management/microsoft-lays-off-2100-c... what about them?
    - cwyers 12y ago
      According to your link, there were 75 people at that lab. Microsoft Research has over 800 people: http://research.microsoft.com/apps/catalog/default.aspx?t=people http://research.microsoft.com/apps/catalog/default.aspx?t=pe...
    - Encosia 12y ago
      That headline is confusingly worded, but Microsoft only laid off 50-75 people in one MSR location. That was far from the entire division: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/labs/default.aspx http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/labs/default.aspx
      - layman 12y ago
        That's not all. There are other parts being shutdown too - Robotics apparently https://twitter.com/AshleyFen/status/513392391467048960 https://twitter.com/AshleyFen/status/513392391467048960
simonebrunozzi 12y ago
Sergey Brin, in my view, represents part of the problem here. Too powerful to be told that he's not delivering much.
- yuhong 12y ago
  I still remember this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3134609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3134609
ballooney 12y ago
I recently had to sit through a presentation by an X-er in which was played a very smug GoogleX video that spliced an annoying amount of apollo- and shuttle-era space exploration footage to pump up what was essentially floating cell towers (Loon). I found it quite disrespectful to the apollo engineers, and grasping of Google PR, to try and equate what they're doing to landing on the moon. It went quite beyond the bounds of what is reasonable with a straight face, for my tastes.

Is Google X anything more than a PR heavy version of Xerox PARC or any other R&D lab that tech companies have had?

by IBM 12y ago

Is Google X anything more than a PR heavy version of Xerox PARC or any other R&D lab that tech companies have had?

Google Brain apparently came out of there, so I'd say definitely not. The other projects have always been longer term, and it seems silly to ask why self-driving cars aren't done yet when it was never expected for them to be done yet.

psbp 12y ago

Well, at least three of its products are being used in the real world (Glass, Loon, Self-driving cars) and at least one is actually being sold (Glass), so yes.

ChuckMcM 12y ago
So you are saying it share's PARC's affinity for inventing things that were both difficult to manufacture and not economically viable? (Only half joking there) I think it interesting that Sebastian left, he's a smart guy and I think he understood what he could do wielding Google X as a tool, that he left means he figured he could do get more of what he wanted to do outside the confines of Google X than he could with it. That makes for a really interesting thought exercise. And that brings us back to PARC, which discovered that the people who left PARC had a bigger impact outside of the lab than in it. The reasons for that were many but mostly they consisted of Xerox not actually being a 'research' company so much as it was a 'copier' company. What does that say about Google X?
gress 12y ago
Glass is a botched PR stunt, not world-changing research. So this underscores the GP's point.
stonogo 12y ago
I think you typed "yes" where you meant "no." Tech company R&D gave us things like the transistor and lasers (both from AT&T) and Mandelbrot fractals and hard drives and the entire concept of a relational database (all from IBM). PARC in specific gave us Ethernet, which I think is safe to describe as "being used in the real world." Google has a long way to go; so far, all of its real contributions have been in software, and all of their hardware R&D has seen very little "real world" deployment. Otherwise it's very much just a well-marketed implementation of traditional corporate R&D.
- walshemj 12y ago
  And fibre optics from Martesham and before that Colossus from Dollis Hill

ThisIBereave 12y ago

Do you mean PARC circa 1970s?

krschultz 12y ago

You say that like it is a bad thing.

georgemcbay 12y ago

Probably not, but isn't that enough these days when so few companies do any sort of long-term bluesky R&D?

julianpye 12y ago

My former boss (CTO of Panasonic) once told me that the only way to do real R&D is to have a monopoly that allows you to hide the margins in cutting edge R&D. Everyone else was doing just product development. Google X is amazing in that it is about the only one left doing true bluesky R&D. Everyone else is just doing product development.

cbhl 12y ago
What about Microsoft Research?
- rasz_pl 12y ago
  http://www.eweek.com/it-management/microsoft-lays-off-2100-closes-research-lab.html http://www.eweek.com/it-management/microsoft-lays-off-2100-c... what about them?
  - cwyers 12y ago
    According to your link, there were 75 people at that lab. Microsoft Research has over 800 people: http://research.microsoft.com/apps/catalog/default.aspx?t=people http://research.microsoft.com/apps/catalog/default.aspx?t=pe...
  - Encosia 12y ago
    That headline is confusingly worded, but Microsoft only laid off 50-75 people in one MSR location. That was far from the entire division: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/labs/default.aspx http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/labs/default.aspx
    - layman 12y ago
      That's not all. There are other parts being shutdown too - Robotics apparently https://twitter.com/AshleyFen/status/513392391467048960 https://twitter.com/AshleyFen/status/513392391467048960

simonebrunozzi 12y ago

Sergey Brin, in my view, represents part of the problem here. Too powerful to be told that he's not delivering much.

yuhong 12y ago
I still remember this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3134609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3134609

ballooney 12y ago

I recently had to sit through a presentation by an X-er in which was played a very smug GoogleX video that spliced an annoying amount of apollo- and shuttle-era space exploration footage to pump up what was essentially floating cell towers (Loon). I found it quite disrespectful to the apollo engineers, and grasping of Google PR, to try and equate what they're doing to landing on the moon. It went quite beyond the bounds of what is reasonable with a straight face, for my tastes.