[askafriend]

I don't see anything wrong with this approach, especially since the company can actually sustainably afford to keep placing these bets.

And perhaps "bet" is the wrong word being used here. Usually with a bet in gambling terms, you either win big or you lose it all.

When Alphabet tries a "moonshot", they come away learning a lot about whatever problem it is that they were trying to tackle. They build expertise in-house, and they flex the idea muscle within the company. That isn't zero-value activity. In fact it's very valuable.

$1B a year is a small price to pay for what could eventually spurn a sustainable $10B per year or $40B per year business in the future (self-driving cars, for example).

Now this is just me being optimistic. It could also very well be the case that the X division is horribly mismanaged and the moonshots fail for more nefarious reasons, but I'm willing to give Google the benefit of the doubt.

[Gustomaximus]

And there are so many side benefits. Obviously Google employees are likely to be capable and smart individuals. So I wonder how much value is in having these type of employees take ideas to the company rather than planing to branch off for most companies that would scoff at letting you do a side project for a while.

In a region like silicon valley the opportunity and availability to walk away for a startup is huge this could act as a retention tool also. Better to let a talent disappear for 20% of their time than lose them altogether.

[arcticfox]

In addition, it's not like these bets have been pronounced dead. They're all still in play. It will be years before we know whether any were successful or not.

This is like someone betting $1000 on a game, and then calling it a $1000 loss up until the game is actually played (at which point it becomes indeed a true $1000 loss, or possibly a gain). It doesn't make any sense.

[askafriend]

Absolutely, it's as if the article's author only looked at these moonshots in the silo of a single financial quarter when it's clear that the moonshots are intended to be decade long investments...

[mike_hearn]

You could argue that Google Glass is dead.

[eru]

Though to be honest, it was never intended as a consumer product. (But their marketing was conflicted.)

Wave is probably an even bigger disappointment: it would have done great as an enterprise product.

[resoluteteeth]

> When Alphabet tries a "moonshot", they come away learning a lot about whatever problem it is that they were trying to tackle. They build expertise in-house, and they flex the idea muscle within the company. That isn't zero-value activity. In fact it's very valuable.

This might work for "moonshots" that are closer to their core business, but in other areas there's not going to be any inherent value in building expertise if the "moonshot" itself ends up failing, because at that point they will cease needing any expertise in that area at all.

Likewise, "flexing the idea muscle" would be a benefit if it was regular Google employees that were working on these projects but it's not. It's Alphabet's X lab which is it's own thing, with people working full time on these moonshots.

[ipsum2]

> And perhaps "bet" is the wrong word being used here. Usually with a bet in gambling terms, you either win big or you lose it all.

Internally, they're referred to as 'bets, a pun on the company name Alphabet.

[zaroth]

Aww, isn't that cute.

[eru]

Only partially. The name 'Alphabet' in itself is a pun on 'Alpha' (in finance terms) and 'bet'.

[zaroth]

What is this, punception?

[JonCox]

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

[rtpg]

I agree with the sentiment, but I don't think you're going to spend just $1B to get to $10B/year. Does Google get to that number with anything apart from Search and Youtube?

Though I think even $1B for a $100M/year business is a pretty decent deal at this point...

[frakr]

I think that it would be reasonable to assume that many of these moonshots are generating patents that could have significant long term value.