In another effort to nurture their Innovation Value Chain, Google is considering an incubator model-over and beyond their famous 20% time. This could move Google away from a hybrid model to a stand-alone operation to nurture innovation.
By Schmidt’s own words, Google sounds like it’s having a conversion problem:
“There was a time when three people at Google could build a world-class product and deliver it, and it is gone. So I think it’s absolutely harder to get things out the door. That’s probably our biggest strategic issue.”
But the article points to discontent at Google that suggests a stand-alone operation is not the solution. Engineers are frustrated by working on exploitative problems, which may drive away top engineers who want to innovate. If retaining those top engineers means they end up in the stand-alone unit, will it make the conversion problem that much greater?
Full article:
3 replies on “Does Maturation Threaten Exploration at Google?”
I think the crux of the problem lies with the quality of projects under Google’s 20% strategy – maybe employees are not thinking big enough. I guess the 20% model worked well for Google when it was small because of the visibility it provided for the engineers. This I think was a big motivational factor for the engineers to think big.
I dont think stand-alone models would help here. One of the nice things about the 20% time model was the sense of security the work from the other 80% provides – it is interesting to note from the article that the manager in charge of Google Wave left for Facebook. Also, getting approvals for these 20% projects would be far more straightforward than convincing the organizational hierarchy to approve a standalone unit. In other words, I think that the percentage of engineers that are inclined and motivated to start a stand-alone unit would be rather low. And, engineers who like to innovate, in a secure way, would rather go to ‘growing places’ like Facebook where the visibility and impact factor are much higher than at Google.
A big piece of the Google problem might be that they have reached a plateau with their business. They are exploiting a business that now has competitors.
Google is following the way of Yahoo before them, and Microsoft before them. Back in 1998 I read an article about how Microsoft was able to attract the best talent and allow them to spend their days researching whatever they wanted. It was a “dream job” of sorts. The whole goal was to be innovative and groundbreaking. Microsoft sure was successful with that.
Yahoo drew top talent for awhile too. Then Google drew it. Now Facebook is drawing it. Who will be next?
From Google’s entry into the ebook market to it’s negotiations to purchase Groupon, it appears that the company is increasingly moving in the direction of sales. It will be interesting to see if these ventures attract new and different talent to Google or accelerate the flight of bright young engineers seeking an environment that supports nimble innovation.