And not everything it gives is easy to see on the bottom line.
I know of some great people (like "Best In Their Field" great) attracted to google to work on X projects. Then while they're there, they may as well spread some of their knowledge to other google projects. Or the tech developed there failed as a standalone product, but the knowledge gained folded in to another project.
Even if every "moonshot" project failed, it may have given benefits to the company as a whole. Though at some point I do wonder if the intent of google X projects is to fail as a standalone product, and just be folded into more core projects....
They criticism of x labs is not that they were insufficiently ambitious, its that they don't execute to achieve moonshots, they play the game to lose. Even if they had a good idea, they would not be able to take it to market, it was all a waste.
Is "AI-fuelled smart agriculture" a "moonshot" at this point?
I thought there were several companies selling fully working systems for camera-targeted weed/fertiliser spraying, right now? Including John Deere? And Trimble and others have things like precision GPS auto-steer for tractors for over a decade?
Seems to me Google has unlimited ad money, so people working there can make the big bucks without needing to deliver sales or profits or build a sales/dealer/repair network or set up a farm equipment manufacturing operation or anything else they don't feel like doing.
Stock buyback money goes to investors who can reallocate it to companies actually providing value to customers instead of wasting it on boondoggles.
Waymo hasn't succeeded yet. Their excessively slow scaling may yet be their downfall. And again, the project predates X. It's more like X came out of Waymo than the other way around.
I know of some great people (like "Best In Their Field" great) attracted to google to work on X projects. Then while they're there, they may as well spread some of their knowledge to other google projects. Or the tech developed there failed as a standalone product, but the knowledge gained folded in to another project.
Even if every "moonshot" project failed, it may have given benefits to the company as a whole. Though at some point I do wonder if the intent of google X projects is to fail as a standalone product, and just be folded into more core projects....