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Loon’s final flight

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Re: Loon’s final flight

#221

Post by ptero »

thu2111 wrote: post #219
ptero wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main problem is they lost the edge on execution. Traditional "vision" is not strictly needed for moonshot projects; the vision for moonshots is provided by a small team working on their idea. But should the technology start panning out, the company needs to focus aggressively on finding a commercial home for this technology. And this is where I think google (and many big companies) fail. Technologically,…

Well, their target market is very poor people, which is not normally a great segment to expect to be early adopters of expensive new technoogies. Also they're competing against Starlink, which is basically the same concept but in space, which is probably impossible given that LEO is well understood and Musk can launch tons of long-lived satellites quite cheap.

All good points. I am just saying that moonshot projects are supposed to be "very high risk, high reward" projects -- unlikely to work, but if they do would provide big benefits. Your points argue that this is a "high risk, no reward" project, which is not the way to run a 10-year moonshot.

Occasionally starting moonshots as "high risk, uncertain reward" is OK for a short time, but if there is no clear reward on success after a year or two it might be continued as a PR or a charity, but not a moonshot. My 2c.

Re: Loon’s final flight

#222

Post by ogre_codes »

bergstromm466 wrote: post #210
ogre_codes wrote: post #25

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?

> all that's left is a giant advertising behemoth Was there really ever anything more?

I think so. I used to be a big fan of Google, they made a great search engine, gmail was ahead of the competitors. Even the moonshots were pretty cool/ interesting. Not sure when things went really sideways.

Re: Loon’s final flight

#223

Post by jrockway »

shpx wrote: post #188
Tepix wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Pizza-box-sized" was a placeholder. The Starlink antenna ("Dishy") has a diameter of 59cm https://i.imgur.com/ULwOGxs.jpg

That's a 12 inch medium pizza, without the box. An antenna of that size can't be carried by normal people going about their daily lives. More people are willing to buy a phone and a phone plan (Facebook was even willing to subsidize the plan in India with Internet.org) than buying a phone, a phone plan, an antenna and a StarLink plan. That's even more true for people who aren't internet users yet.

I thought pizzas were measured by their circumference, not their radius. If so, that's a 72" pizza.

I measured out 59cm on a measuring tape and compared it to my refrigerator, and that's much larger than any pizza I have ever seen.

Re: Loon’s final flight

#224

Post by losvedir »

nickff wrote: post #131
Uke wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the external pressures to be the first on the moon instead of the USSR we're quite high.

Kennedy was looking to either cancel Apollo (due to skyrocketing costs), or try to get USSR onboard for it (which probably would have caused it to stall). In addition to that, Apollo was extremely unpopular for the entirety of its existence, save for a brief period in the middle of 1969. The space program's history is very different from what most people imagine it to have been.

I don't think this is a fair characterization of the situation, but my knowledge is mostly based on one book, Reaching for the Moon, a Short History of the Space Race[0], that I recently read.

You're right that Kennedy was ambivalent about it, and that working with the USSR was floated, but ultimately he did decide to go ahead with it. And there were people opposed, but "extremely unpopular" doesn't sound right. Like, I think the majority of the population was broadly in favor.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/030023046X/

Re: Loon’s final flight

#225

Post by jeffbee »

swyx wrote: post #193
antupis wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brain is doing great and Waymo probably at least hits close.

alright I'm gonna ask the naive question: how exactly does Brain make money? is it offered as an independent product? or is it's incremental contribution to the rest of Google that high? what even is Brain, to Google devs?

To me it's an umbrella for all of the projects that fell out of an initial realization (by Jeff Dean and his circle) that Google's infrastructure was large enough to put into practice a class of older ML ideas that had spent years being thought infeasible. They developed the means of training huge models, then useful models that resulted from that, and follow-on project like TPUs.

Re: Loon’s final flight

#226

Post by jessriedel »

gonehome wrote: post #125
jessriedel wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loon can (could) handle normal LTE mobile phones. Starlink requires a phased array antenna the size of a pizza box which, to my understanding, cannot be fully miniaturized. That's not to say they aren't somewhat competing against each other, but Starlink doesn't strictly dominate as you imply.

I honestly think SpaceX could give those away in developing areas if they had to. But yes, you’re right that being able to use LTE and existing phone radios was a point in loon’s favor.

Ok, but just to be clear, I wasn't trying to make a statement about cost; that can always be folded into the monthly payments or, as you say, philanthropically donated.

Re: Loon’s final flight

#227

Post by gonehome »

wcoenen wrote: post #154
gonehome wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well a nine year investment in a company to end in failure isn’t what I’d call a strategic success.

A single investment is not strategy though. Think of the investments in Loon, Taara, SpaceX and Google Fiber as part of a larger strategy to bring internet access with decent bandwidth to a larger number of humans. Some investments will not pan out, others will bear fruit.

I think we’re talking about different things.

Does this make sense for alphabet? I agree that it does as one of their many bets.

Does it make sense for Loon which spun off as its own company under alphabet with its own leadership and its own stock? That’s the strategic failure I’m talking about, Loon’s not alphabet’s.

Re: Loon’s final flight

#228

Post by gkoberger »

djrogers wrote: post #212
gkoberger wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, maybe after 15 years they seem status quo. But almost all of these were revolutionary at the time... do you remember videos before Youtube, collaboration before Docs, email before Gmail or maps before Maps? Yes, Google makes money off ads. But how does that discount them being innovations (which, btw, is a qualification you came up with... nobody above you even said they were).

> email before Gmail or maps before Maps Hotmail and Mapquest would like to chime in here...

I used both!

Hotmail was full of spam, insecure and you had to delete your emails when you were done with them.

Mapquest had directions but the maps were static and you couldn’t interact with them.

I’m not saying Google invented email or maps, but they did define how we currently think of them.

Re: Loon’s final flight

#229

Post by syedkarim »

jrockway wrote: post #223
shpx wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a 12 inch medium pizza, without the box. An antenna of that size can't be carried by normal people going about their daily lives. More people are willing to buy a phone and a phone plan (Facebook was even willing to subsidize the plan in India with Internet.org) than buying a phone, a phone plan, an antenna and a StarLink plan. That's even more true for people who aren't internet users yet.

I thought pizzas were measured by their circumference, not their radius. If so, that's a 72" pizza. I measured out 59cm on a measuring tape and compared it to my refrigerator, and that's much larger than any pizza I have ever seen.

Pizzas are measured by their diameter (in the US).

Re: Loon’s final flight

#230

Post by Dylan16807 »

mFixman wrote: post #209
Dylan16807 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surviving on the way to Mars isn't a huge leap in difficulty over a space station, and we have those on lock.

It's much harder if you include the return trip.

You have to keep things going for 3 years, but I think such a trip is still pretty straightforward with our current abilities.

But wow what a drawn-out load of nothing a mission like that would be.

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