I mean that incubator was a total waste of money. No one did anything, everyone was a bser from the top, and 95% of the projects were total failures. I think there were maybe 3 "successful" projects.
I joined Area 120 with huge skepticism. It was hamstrung and inefficient in its own ways. And I agree it didn’t reach its potential - largely because it was encased in Google 2020 instead of Google 2007.
But to my surprise almost all of the projects were impressive, well-conceived, promising bets. And the people in Area 120 were among the top 10% of Googlers I worked with in my decade at the company.
Google killed Area 120 because of bureaucracy and politics, full stop. Google is worse off because of it.
Most of what makes people effective at large companies is neutral or negative value when applied to very early-stage companies.
A significant number of the people in Area 120 projects were folks who were stifled and/or wasted in their previous Google jobs. One explicit purpose of Area 120 was to prevent the loss of these entrepreneurs to outside startups. Not incidentally, this was a form of cultural reinforcement - Area 120 burnished Google’s reputation as a good home for entrepreneurial mindsets.
So basically google had a shed where they hoarded talented people, to prevent competition? :)
That's a succinct description of why Microsoft Research was created.
2) in general, early Google used to hoard talent all the time. The founders would keep great people (or their friends) on payroll for ~ever just to have them stick around. That was most prevalent in the first decade of Google’s life, to my knowledge, and mostly applied to very senior people.
By the time Area 120 was pitched and approved (circa 2014), those days were largely gone. Area 120 was primarily filled with junior people (L4-L6) and constantly had to sing for its supper - it was not at all a sinecure.
These are rather the top 10 % sycophants, not the top 10 % researchers or top 10 % programmers.
I sometimes wonder what people expect innovation is. You try and try and try. One thing is good and you must know how to use it - it can make history.
If I understood right, chatgpt comes from one of such ideas.... so the question is also: who evaluates the ideas? How come that Google was not able to capitalize on that idea?
So yeah, instead of treating the cause they treat the symptoms, like usual.
I think the incentives would have to be much different for it to work (e.g. much lower base pay + higher rewards for success)…..but at that point just join a startup
It’s not that hard to evaluate when something is working (ie the hard part in evaluation is false negatives, not false positives).
In Area 120’s case there was no coasting - if anything there was a hair-trigger standard to shut down underperforming projects.
Not every company can afford these "paid vacations", but they do have some use at times.