111–120 of 264 posts
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It's kinda weird to think of brain as an X project. DistBelief was developed out in the open in the main source code repo by people you think of as googlers, like Jeff. So what makes it "X"?
A need to justify X's existence?
My own personal image of X was that if you had to drive to some old Air Force base to see it, it was X. Since brain was software, it doesn’t fit the model.
> Sadly, despite the team’s groundbreaking technical achievements over the last 9 years — ... — the road to commercial viability has proven much longer and riskier than hoped.
Focus is on the technical achievements, never mind if anyone ever used it.
People often make fun of Google/Alphabet for their graveyard of failed initiatives/products. While some of it might be warranted, projects like this—that strive to solve a large, global issue through somewhat charitable actions—are generous and have only increased my respect for the Google/Alphabet/X team. I hope they don't get flamed for this, and hopefully some of their research and donation funds can live on and s…
I think the days of Google Moonshots are coming to a close. In general Google hasn't been very good at shooting for the moon. They've lost their leadership and vision and all that's left is a giant advertising behemoth. Did any of their moonshots really hit the mark or even come close?
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Since Ruth Porat came in they've really trimmed any expenditure that doesn't add straight to the bottom line It's really hard to be a public company and to take big risks like this. The Apollo Program never would have worked as a startup or public company. I personally had hoped they told analysts that taking large bets for often no financial outcome is just who Alphabet are - but they folded to the Wall St pressure
I am a staunch supporter of the space program, but... the Apollo program also got cut before it had achieved its objectives, and probably never would have made it to the moon at all if Kennedy had lived.
IMHO, this is NO different from google closing down any other product. If, however, this news came with a grant of all the patents into the public domain, then it would be another story. Could a startup set up a commercial balloon based mesh network without running into patents now held by google? Probably not. THIS is the problem with these "skunkworks" type projects from megacorps. They suck all the air out of the…
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Wouldn't this be considered 'strategic' to Google b/c it had the potential to provide additional eyeballs & ad revenue to users outside of their normal markets (US/EU)?
The general idea of a global telecom is a good one. The strategic failure was not recognizing that starlink’s approach to the problem made way more sense. They didn’t see that as the existential threat it was. Instead they downsized their implementation to running the network over poor countries and hand waved a bit about being able to provide connectivity in congested areas. Loon has no viable future in a world with…
People often make fun of Google/Alphabet for their graveyard of failed initiatives/products. While some of it might be warranted, projects like this—that strive to solve a large, global issue through somewhat charitable actions—are generous and have only increased my respect for the Google/Alphabet/X team. I hope they don't get flamed for this, and hopefully some of their research and donation funds can live on and s…
it’s just corporate PR so people can fawn over them like your post and want to work there or use their products
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the days of Google Moonshots are coming to a close. In general Google hasn't been very good at shooting for the moon. They've lost their leadership and vision and all that's left is a giant advertising behemoth. Did any of their moonshots really hit the mark or even come close?
Never mind shooting for the moon; they were very late to a cloud game that they should have owned because they were too busy shooting for the moon.
Wrt. moonshots - one need to have huge political capital inside the company to carry the high risk of large investment. I.e. one has to be Jobs or Musk. Even Yang failed. How Nadella succeeded it is kind of a miracle. It looks like there are no people of that caliber at Google these days, and without it you have a CFO touting "investing for long term" which in CFO mind obviously means investment like buying real estate and not a technology moonshot.
People often make fun of Google/Alphabet for their graveyard of failed initiatives/products. While some of it might be warranted, projects like this—that strive to solve a large, global issue through somewhat charitable actions—are generous and have only increased my respect for the Google/Alphabet/X team. I hope they don't get flamed for this, and hopefully some of their research and donation funds can live on and s…