https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_self-driving_car
Tesla has more than 100,000 model S driving around and in just 7 months their auto pilots have already surpassed the km driven by Google for the past 7 years by almost a factor 100 (roughly 200M km). That is real use in many places, situations and weathers, not just test drives in California.
I realise it's not apples to apples and that Google's cars may be more autonomous for now. But with the numbers stacked against it like that I doubt it will be long before Tesla's auto pilot is vastly superior.
As I see it, given the lack of a Google car, they will have to team up with a major car company to get enough cars out there. And that requires a more elegant hardware solution than what they currently put on the rooftops.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/231097-tesla-records-its-...
I think that is an understatement. This video shows why staying in your lane on a highway (what Tesla autopilot does) and dealing with city streets are two just completely different things: https://youtu.be/tiwVMrTLUWg?t=8m49s
I think Tesla has a ton of catching up to do to compete with where Google is right now.
That's not to say that tesla isn't developing full automation it's just that what they sell now is just clever branding on something you can get elsewhere.
Musk is literally too good friends with Sergey Brin and Larry Page for this not too happen.
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/elon-musk-and-larry-page-ha...
http://www.businessinsider.com/googles-secret-apartment-elon...
Tesla, with a large, update-able fleet in the field, has a much larger data-collection platform than Google. Even if they're not using it for full automation now, the collection itself is very valuable.
This is almost certainly why Uber is putting self-driving cars into the field now as well, even though they are clearly not ready for prime-time. They need those sensor packages to be driving around on real roads and in real traffic.
Tesla (currently) has one radar, one camera and 4 short distance ultrasonic sensors. Google has LIDAR plus a lot more.
Tesla's suite may or may not be sufficient for operation. But for training, good data is critical.
Additionally, I've read some really interesting articles about research other car manufacturers have done. For instance, Google has never tested in bad weather, but Ford has been working on self-driving cars that work in snow. And while Google just assumes the humans are meant to be 'along for the ride', Volkswagon did some really good UI work, in terms of figuring out how to make the car's actions predictable, and hence, less scary. (Essentially, the car indicated to the driver what it was about to do before it executed a maneuver.)
Google is really good at capitalizing on their self-driving car project for marketing purposes, but it's extremely unlikely it'll ever be a market leader.
>> Google's sensor platform is the most expensive out there.
>> Google has never tested in bad weather
What about a self-driving cars as a service ? they can be the first to start a very profitable service that is limited in area and in weather even thought the sensors are more expensive(and they can claim "we aren't cutting corners like everybody else!")
And that could be a great place to be in, strategically.
Since this is a core part of your argument, I'm gonna go ahead and [citation needed]
I've not heard anything of the sort and I've seen Google's cars on all sorts of roads. Plenty of their talks have been about the cars detecting anomalous situations and reacting appropriately, as well.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
* Even if the projects get 10, 100 millions $ in revenue / profit, it is meaningless compare to billions in profit from search. The folks in those projects are not likely to benefit significantly from it.
* The smart folks probably know it. If they join the project (self driving car), some of motives are to learn as much as possible using Google's resources, name, connections and set it up for their own next venture.
Reading this article makes me wonder if it was a good idea to put all of them into one division though. Even when you go in knowing a project is a long-shot it can be demoralizing when it fails. I can't imagine how hard it would be to work in a whole division of mostly failed projects.
Instead of getting lean startups that have to move quickly because of resource scarcity you have bloated startups that feel no pressure to move quickly because of the unlimited resources they are receiving.
It just operates on hype curve. GoogleX takes projects from "technological trigger" to "peak of inflated expectations": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle
- Verify/Life Sciences is failing pretty hard and has failed to develop any actual products. https://www.statnews.com/2016/03/28/google-life-sciences-exo...
- Glass is an absolute failure. I own one, I loved mine. It's still a failure.
- Gcam went to... Google Research? It went from moonshot R&D to normal R&D. That's not success.
- Google Brain... went to Research as well. And really, it is likely just a rebranded version of whatever DeepMind was already doing when Google bought them.
- Project Tango went from Google's moonshot R&D to Motorola's R&D (ATAP) which Google kept ownership of. That's also not success.
Android Wear, Flux, and Project Insight (Indoor Maps) probably all count as actual successes for X, but that's about it.
Unsurprising. The valley (and tech in general) is forgetting it's power doesn't come from management and politics.
In a academic context, there is no subtext of creating products. Yeah, churning out papers is as contrived...but I still feel like the timelines in academia are more generous.
Google talks a good press event, highlighting their embrace of failure, their desire to take on crazy moonshots etc...but its all in the context of quarterly reports. Something has to give.
Isn't the whole idea of a "moonshot", in this context, a project that has both a long window before any payoff, and a high risk of failure. So isn't this a very much "water is wet" story?
If you're familiar with the internals of Google (or have ever worked there), then you wouldn't even be slightly surprised by the content of this article or the ever present stream of product failures from Google. In fact, if you're aware, then you know things are likely to remain this way until something is done about all the BS present internally.
You see the "difficult to work-- FOR" and almost (or all out) sociopathic leaders being outed to some extent in the last year or so: commonplace. That is, Google likes to position itself as being above such stupidity, but if you listen to what they say more carefully, you see this is their default/go-to strategy. That is, they explicitly seek out such personalities (similar to many VCs), as they believe (based on "data") that it's what's more likely to lead to success.
Also, while it would be easy to believe Google is all about the "moon shots" they like touting/hyping (especially given how much money they are dumping in that direction), if you look at who they are putting in key positions, and how everything is setup, you immediately realize that (regardless of what they are doing) it will all likely go nowhere.
Something is very strange about that place. It's like they have no brain. It's like they are just outright stupid. Which I suppose is hard to say (and have believed), especially after years of hype (and supporting anecdotes) about its exceptionally talented pool of employees.
Essentially, it often seems like a sea of INTJs who like to parade around as though they know what to do with data (and are above bias and feeding into their own BS, because they are "data-driven"), but that at the end of the day are just going based on whim/gut, one which is more self-centered and out of touch than "in tune with" and reflective of the world at large (or where it's going).
I suppose if you spin around in your own shht enough, and surround yourself with more of-- yourself-- then eventually, you'll fall into line believing your own BS and that you must be right.
I remember when I was at Google for a short time in 2010. The place was a source of endless annoyance and irritation. The field was wide open, and it was all there for the taking, but then they just consistently and continually kept making the dumbest decisions. And they'd defend those decisions as though they were God almighty and immune to being wrong. It was the greatest consistent stream of stupidity I had ever seen. And by the looks of it, nothing has really changed. It's just been shht, then more shht, then more BS trying to explain away the shht, as though shht isn't what it is.
It's not that they "fail often due to releasing more and sooner" or "see something beyond the field of view of many;" it's that they just plain failed and it was most likely due to stupidity/credentials (you heard what I said) being heard over repeated statements of what made more sense (or of what would be more likely to go somewhere). Also, that failure that looks like a half-assed piece of crap likely was likely 2 years (or more) in the making, rather than the 6-8 weeks it seems went into it.
It's just shht every time, and as soon as you step into realizing it, you'll see that it's always just more shht from them. Their only successes (even in their "main" business) have come from the competition "falling off" (F'ing themselves over), rather than from them releasing things that are worthwhile or better.
The place was extremely infuriating to me, and I couldn't wait to leave. I was in silent shock the majority of the time I was there, and it seems that even though 6+ years have gone by, not much has changed!
I'll say it outright and in plain English: the "almighty" Google-- the almighty enterprise of innovation-- the almighty force for pushing the web/world forward-- is completely full of shht! They couldn't put out an innovative (or even just quality) product to save their lives! If anything surfaces from them that's not more garbage, then it was likely from an acquisition. And even then, it seems they are F'ing even those avenues up more frequently as time goes by.
Google Photos: acquisition!
Google DeepMind: acquisition!
Google ATAP: acquisition!
Etc.
They've got nothing.
Who's to blame?!
Attention, Decision, Interest, Action. AIDA.
We're adding a little something to this month's sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? (second prize is a set of steak knives.)
Third prize is you're fired.
These are The New Leads. These are the Glengarry leads. And to you they're gold. And you don't get them. Why? Because to give them to you would be throwing them away. They're for closers.
If Google X is really just a nerd-PR exercise, let's call it that.
