I think it's more that if they're not in "wartime" mode, and employ a bunch of brilliant people who are well resourced and not working flat-out, they have a goo

I think it's more that if they're not in "wartime" mode, and employ a bunch of brilliant people who are well resourced and not working flat-out, they have a good chance of coming up with big things accidentally. gmail isn't necessarily huge compared to AdSense, but it's big compared to startups. What sucks for startups is when there's a google-subsidized free or below cost kind of crappy option for something at $0 or $50/yr, which crowds the market out for a $200/yr version. Or when something like Reader happens, which basically kills all innovation in an area, and then eventually gets killed on its own after those other competitors have died. I'm kind of bitter because there are 2 big projects I'd love to do, but there's a crappy Google (or in one case, Google + a couple other companies) product in the middle of the field in the low price position.