[lijason]

If you look at PARC and Bell Labs, the innovations from those teams didn't necessarily become ubiquitous while within those companies. They started there, but left before they found their market and adoption success. I get the feeling we may see that with Google's green field projects as well. Google R&D may identify important areas of the future but be unable to monetize and grow them in ways that make sense in the current business.

Otto (and Uber's acquisition of it) might end up being an example of that in the self-driving car side. Google incubates that vision, unable or unwilling to release it as the founders of Otto wanted; they leave and eventually find commercial success elsewhere.