[advisedwang]

If Google is really aiming as high as it says it is, you would expect the rate of successes to be fairly low. A true "moonshot" success - one that creates a whole new industry - every decade would still be a phenomenal success. Maybe we just need patience?

[mdorazio]

Many people (myself included) would compare X in intent and setup to PARC from the 1970s. The latter managed the extraordinary feat of pushing out a major innovation on average about once every 2.5 years from 1970 to 2000. That's things like laser printing, OOP, Ethernet, etc. that went on to build industries or take existing ones in new directions.

X, on the other hand, has been around for over 6 years now and as far as I know, its only marginal success to date has been Glass. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that X's success rate so far has been lower than many people expected.

[gaius]

I dunno, given the public backlash, far from kickstarting a new industry, Glass killed face-mounted wearables stone dead. The word "glasshole" will probably stick around for longer, so there's that...

[cageface]

It may be true that it's harder now to make those kinds of leaps than it was in the 1970s though.

[gaius]

Why?

I mean, everything is obvious in retrospect. I'm sure there were some PARC guys bemoaning that all the fundamental discoveries were already made in the 1950s... Google today probably has bigger budgets than Xerox had then (tho' that's just a guess on my part)

[cageface]

A lot of discoveries get exponentially harder. Compare the LHC to experiments people were doing 100 years ago for an extreme example.

[oh_sigh]

Evidence of this assertion?

[cageface]

It's a speculation, not an assertion. But it's a speculation many well-informed scientists have made in the last few years.

For example: http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2011/02/07/the-difficulty-...

[lbebber]

The fruits might be hanging higher nowadays though.

[jordonwii]

> Many people (myself included) would compare X in intent and setup to PARC from the 1970s.

That was probably true originally. Lately, (especially post-Alphabet) it seems like the pressure is on them to produce commercial products, albeit ones that might be many years out - my impression is that researchers at PARC were not, realistically, under the same pressure (see: the many innovations that were never commercialized).

That makes sense, though - Google is actively in search of new business models, while Xerox enjoyed such enormous market share while PARC was well-funded that I doubt they felt that kind of pressure until later.

[bullfightonmars]

PARC may have pushed out innovative tech every 2.5 years but didn't it take much longer for most of those technologies to change the shape of or come to be foundational to tech?

[guelo]

Their biggest success is probably Google Brain.

[howlin]

Google brain was an acquisition, not a Google X project.

[bbctol]

Google Brain was an internal development, while Google DeepMind was an acquisition. What the conceptual difference is supposed to be between the two is hard to say.

[howlin]

Yes you're right. How confusing!

[WDCDev]

This depends on the goal of the projects. If it's pure R&D that doesn't have a requirement to transition to commercial use, then you are absolutely correct. I don't think that's the case here. Some percentage of projects has to transition it's technology or research into commercial use, otherwise what is the point? Google is a publicly traded company, I wouldn't be a happy stockholder if I knew they were blowing $1 billion a year and with very little to show for it.

One thing did jump out at me in this article.

Mike Cassidy, who stepped down from Loon, ran the team “like a fire drill,” a former employee said.

I read this as, "Leadership likes to change its mind about direction and focus ... constantly". That's a recipe for disaster. Focus is key. You need to find the right direction as quick as possible, then execute.

[boto3]

How? Google is not built on fundamental research like Xerox was. It's essentially a consumer company. Yes search and ad tech at scale is hard engineering, but it's the same as the physics of light.

[karma_vaccum123]

Or maybe you can't just put people in a room and say "invent stuff".

It may sound hackneyed, but I believe necessity is the mother of invention and it doesn't seem there is that kind of motivation here...it feels forced.

[mathattack]

Yes - this is the VC model. Hitting 100-1000x results every once in a while, as opposed to lots of 3-10x results.

[freyr]

Yes, but eventually the VC needs to hit that 100x result. GoogleX has not. Heck, nothing's even really made it out the gate.

The self-driving car is the project that seems to have the biggest potential impact, but the string of high-profile departures over the last year or two is worrisome.

Also, the leader wearing Rollerblades to meetings seems far too much like a parody of "quirky tech visionary" for my comfort. But maybe I'm more traditional/close-minded than most here.

[mathattack]

Yes. VCs who don't have the big return don't get to have a 2nd fund. :-) I'm bullish on self-driving cars. Even if their cars don't make it, I think the AI behind it will.