I remember, back when Instant was first ramping up staffing from prototype to production levels, saying,<p>"It's going to be a spectacular failure, but I am very, very glad that I work in a company where we can take risks like this."<p>(In my defense, remember that chart Google released today showing the resource usage of various incarnations of Instant? It was in the Prototype stage at the time, with a total cost roughly 10-20x existing websearch. We were talking about having to build new datacenters to support it. And the UI was nowhere near as polished; I found it very jarring to use at the time.)<p>I think there's a lesson for entrepreneurs in here somewhere: imagine where the technology <i>could be</i>, not where it <i>is</i>. Almost all innovations are pretty crappy when they first come out. That's a reason to improve them, not a reason to cancel them. Many problems that look impossible at first can be solved given enough engineering effort and creative thinking.<p>I think it also says a lot about the management style of Larry & Sergei vs. the MBAs at Yahoo. There's a tendency, as companies get bigger, to look at things rationally and say "We have $X to lose if this fails, and some uncertain $Y to gain if it succeeds. The chance of success is low. Let's not do it." Larry & Sergei say "Okay, we know what the risks are. $X is high but manageable, and $Y is unknown but potentially big. Let's do it."