Google's Moonshot Factory Falls Back Down to Earth

&gt; McKinsey &amp; Co.-trained entrepreneur who abandoned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics to build startups in sub-Saharan Africa<p>That does not sound like the profile I&#x27;d want to run a moonshot project. To me you either you want someone who is very goal oriented to do a research lab approach or very product oriented to do a deep tech startup approach. Abandoning a PhD indicate it&#x27;s not the former and McKinsey indicates it&#x27;s not the latter.

I worked in Area120 and then at Waymo, in the X building, and saw lots of the other X projects. They built some jaw-dropping stuff.<p>It&#x27;s tempting to talk about structural problems, incentives, the dynamic between search ads &amp; &quot;moonshots&quot;.<p>But I think the main variable that explains the outcomes is quality of management. Running projects like these requires excellent leadership - giving brilliant engineers autonomy to experiment, yet guiding them towards a consistent goal. Knowing when to double down and when to pivot.<p>The stories about John Krafcik, Astro Teller, and Andy Conrad [<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.statnews.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;03&#x2F;28&#x2F;google-life-sciences-exodus&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.statnews.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;03&#x2F;28&#x2F;google-life-sciences-exo...</a>], or what happened with Levandowski paint a picture that sufficiently explains the outcomes.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.ph&#x2F;2jwd2" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.ph&#x2F;2jwd2</a>

I don’t know how “McKinsey Trained” could be anything other than an absolute insult.

Trying to beat tyranny of the East Coast scientifically rigorous startup equation using a 2-stage West Coast system (whimsy+VC — softtech)???<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;fpgacomputing.blogspot.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;11&#x2F;the-stanford-startup-and-mit-startup.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;fpgacomputing.blogspot.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;11&#x2F;the-stanford-start...</a><p>2024 <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=40434290">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=40434290</a><p>2013 <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=6715864">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=6715864</a>

Did work with a couple of these.<p>I couldn&#x27;t tell if it was because of the flim-flam nature of the people they hired, or the flim-flam nature of Google&#x27;s organizational culture.<p>A lot of good ideas died on the vine either way.

Any insight into why the process is so difficult to spin the companies out?

My former boss (CTO of a large multinational Electronics company) once explained to me that &#x27;true&#x27; (unrestrained) R&amp;D is only possible if you have a monopoly and want to lower your margins to avoid antitrust scrutiny. This rings true to me. It also signals that Google is now entering a phase of real competition.