> “Most of the emphasis within the company is on the next couple of years, and we tend not to think about longer than that,” says Peter Norvig, Google’s director of research.

Does anyone else, after having read this article, find that it isn't really about what the title suggests? There's no direct admission or direct quote from anyone at Google about what scares them.

The closest this article comes to telling us what scares Google is extrapolating that Google's slightly different method of developing products (fail fast, fail often) is a sign that they're scared. It's quite a stretch.

The Atlantic may be a venerable publication, but the title on this one sure looks like linkbait to me.