X is still very much run by Sergey. On the more experimental projects (i.e. not Glass or self-driving cars) you have a fair amount of freedom to experiment, but if Sergey wants something to happen a certain way, it happens that way.

(For that matter, the rest of the company isn't all that different: you have a fair amount of freedom to experiment, but if Larry wants something to happen a certain way, it happens that way.)

> A playground for extremely smart people

Which is pretty much a definition of a good research lab.

Sounds a lot like research to me

The article might describe it as a 'product development group' but really that's just a lab for engineers rather than scientists. It's not like Los Alamos where it was science-centric research, rather it's more like PARC or what Stark Labs would be like, in that it's 'product'-centric because it's the engineering rather than scientific version of a research lab.

It's a lab.