Google is really an Engineering company.
Approach: We'll build great useful hardcore engineering products.
Like some of the employees coming up with G-Mail (in "20% of their time" [9] or so they say!).
Not a consumer-centric company. Not much thought on design, UI-UX, human interactions.
"Design? Well, use Big Data, A/B testing and other "Engineering" approaches to find out what users want."
It is so much Engineering focused ("We are an Engineering company [10] ") that - even Researchers work alongside Engineers [11] [12] - working on tough problems.
In fact, that's how "Mapreduce" [1] was born - to solve distributed processing challenges that Google face.
[Google didn't built an expensive supercomputer when it got stared back in 1998/99. It was too expensive to build one.
Rather, connected hundreds, and later thousands of computers to form a cluster.]
No separate research division like Microsoft Research [4].
That means very little long term work (but that was before GoogleX).
Google is not and cannot enjoy the luxury of being a traditional product development company, because its products are built upon cutting edge research. It's like : you research and you implement your invention in a product.
So Google gives a lot of freedom to its Engineers to come up with great ideas. According to Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, these Engineers are called "Smart Creatives". [Reference: How Google works]
No initial, "must-be-followed" plans; rather come up with great solutions yourselves.
Google is built on and lives on talented Engineers.
GoogleX Approach:
"So here is a futuristic technology that looks promising and conforms to our Moonshot thinking [3]" (like DARPA Autonomus Car challenge [5])
=> "Lets develop it at GoogleX".
Brainchild of GoogleX include
Almost completely depended on Ad revenues (95% revenue) [6].
"Google TV didn't succeeded" -> "Doesn't matter" -> "Lots of revenue from Search Ads (+ Now, Youtube, Mobile Ads)".
Google should focus more on "products".
Focusing on "Products" means user-centric approach: "What does the user want in a Smart TV?"
What Apple (Steve Jobs, Jonathan Ive [7]) does:
"Lets make a Phone (product) that users would love" -> iPhone was born.
[The classic story of Jonny [7] coming up with a great design and
the "intuitive", "creative (LSD-induced)" Jobs [14] declaring "This is the future!" [13]
whether the "analytic" "Software-focused" Gates likes it or not! (who, according to Jobs, never understood how to turn great products combining both hardware and software into a single whole)]
Google products
Search and Web Apps
Chrome
Android
"Moonshot Thinking"
GoogleX, ATAP
Others:
Recent acquisitions and diversification:
Imagine: Tahsin starting his own company. It won't take too many years to turn my company into the World's first Trllion Dollar company.
Reference
Followups
Approach: We'll build great useful hardcore engineering products.
Like some of the employees coming up with G-Mail (in "20% of their time" [9] or so they say!).
Not a consumer-centric company. Not much thought on design, UI-UX, human interactions.
"Design? Well, use Big Data, A/B testing and other "Engineering" approaches to find out what users want."
It is so much Engineering focused ("We are an Engineering company [10] ") that - even Researchers work alongside Engineers [11] [12] - working on tough problems.
In fact, that's how "Mapreduce" [1] was born - to solve distributed processing challenges that Google face.
[Google didn't built an expensive supercomputer when it got stared back in 1998/99. It was too expensive to build one.
Rather, connected hundreds, and later thousands of computers to form a cluster.]
No separate research division like Microsoft Research [4].
That means very little long term work (but that was before GoogleX).
Google is not and cannot enjoy the luxury of being a traditional product development company, because its products are built upon cutting edge research. It's like : you research and you implement your invention in a product.
- Larry Page and Sergey Brin were working on Data Mining & Web Search for their PhD and came up with "PageRank" algorithm [17] and implemented it as the Search Engine.
- Google Research invented "Mapreduce" [1] and implemented it in their system.
- When Google started putting Ads in search results (as a way to monetize) results in the beginning weren't satisfactory. [Reference: How Google works] But Page and Brin couldn't afford to say, well, we have this and that problem in our ad results and we should have a product that should be "this".
- No. Because no one knew how to show ads in the best possible way. So you could not have a definite product development plan from the start. You had to "research" ("re-search" means "searching" continuously until you found a better solution) to find an algorithm that optimizes your revenue respecting the goals of businesses who are paying money for those ads.
So Google gives a lot of freedom to its Engineers to come up with great ideas. According to Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, these Engineers are called "Smart Creatives". [Reference: How Google works]
No initial, "must-be-followed" plans; rather come up with great solutions yourselves.
Google is built on and lives on talented Engineers.
GoogleX Approach:
"So here is a futuristic technology that looks promising and conforms to our Moonshot thinking [3]" (like DARPA Autonomus Car challenge [5])
=> "Lets develop it at GoogleX".
Brainchild of GoogleX include
- Google Self Driving Car
- Google Glass
- Project Ara [2] (modular phone).
Almost completely depended on Ad revenues (95% revenue) [6].
"Google TV didn't succeeded" -> "Doesn't matter" -> "Lots of revenue from Search Ads (+ Now, Youtube, Mobile Ads)".
Google should focus more on "products".
Focusing on "Products" means user-centric approach: "What does the user want in a Smart TV?"
What Apple (Steve Jobs, Jonathan Ive [7]) does:
"Lets make a Phone (product) that users would love" -> iPhone was born.
[The classic story of Jonny [7] coming up with a great design and
the "intuitive", "creative (LSD-induced)" Jobs [14] declaring "This is the future!" [13]
whether the "analytic" "Software-focused" Gates likes it or not! (who, according to Jobs, never understood how to turn great products combining both hardware and software into a single whole)]
- Google started off with Search.
- Next:
- Platforms (Chrome and Android) and
- Services (G-Mail, Google+, Google Apps).
- Now:
- Diversified (including Autonomous Cars, Smart Home and $250 Million investments in drug research - "Calico").
Google products
Search and Web Apps
- Search Engine
- Youtube
- GMail
- Google+
- Google Maps
- Google Adsense, Analytics
- Google Apps
- Google App Engine
Chrome
- Chrome Browser
- ChromeOS
Android
- Android Wear
- Google Now
- Google Play Store
"Moonshot Thinking"
GoogleX, ATAP
- Google Glass
- Project Ara
- Google Self Driving Car
- Project Loon [8]
Others:
- Google Ventures
- Google TV - Android TV
- Google Wallet
- Shopping Express
Recent acquisitions and diversification:
- Calico
- Nest
- Boston Dynamics & Other Robotics Companies (8 in total)
- Titan Aerospace
- Skybox Imaging
Imagine: Tahsin starting his own company. It won't take too many years to turn my company into the World's first Trllion Dollar company.
Reference
- The Paper that introduced "Mapreduce"
- Project Ara
- Thinking big: Larry Page talks moon shots
- Microsoft Research
- DARPA Grand Challenge
- Google Inc. Announces First Quarter 2014 Results
- Jonathan Ive
- Project Loon
- Google's "20 percent time" in action - Google's Official Blog
- Google Mountain View (Global HQ)
- Research At Google
- Google's Hybrid Approach to Research : Alfred Spector, Peter Norvig and Slav Petrov
- Steve Jobs Unveils The Original iPhone - Macworld San Francisco 2007
- Steve Jobs [Hardcover] by Walter Isaacson
- How Facebook Got Big
- How Web Search Engines Work
- The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine : Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page
Followups
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