Google are doing a lot of long term research though. Huge investments in AI, search tech, big data, networking, the TPU stuff. Self driving cars. Contact lens screens. Head-mounted displays. Drones. The list goes on and on.
Makani was funded for 14 years! 14 years!! How many companies are willing to fund speculative research programmes in things unrelated to their core business for so many years? None, that I'm aware of.
Truth is Makani should have been shut down years ago. Government or corporate has nothing to do with it (that is, the same assessment would apply if it was funded by the government too). Their idea clearly wasn't competitive with the by now highly optimised wind turbine industry. It's not obvious why it ever was expected to be so.
You seem to be arguing with something I didn't say.
I definitely agree that Google should prune their portfolio using rigorous standards. I'm just saying that if one judges the whole effort by typical established-business standards, you're going to get typical results. Some things need more time to prove viability. Since Google a) will be around a long time, and b) is currently dependent on a single cash cow, they can (and should!) take long-term risks with long-term payoffs.
> It's not obvious why it ever was expected to be so.
This is a very bad way to look at long-term research. Or any novel venture, really. You want to be a pundit with a great track record on startups? Just say each one will fail. You'll be right 90% of the time with very little effort.
But it's even easier to wait until something fails and say, "It's not obvious why it was ever expected to work." Of course! If it were obvious that something was going to work, it wouldn't need to be done as a startup. And once it has actually failed, hindsight bias lets us paint it as an inevitable failure. E.g., if SpaceX had had less money and a couple more explosions, it could easily have gone under, and then all of its detractors could have done the "we told you it would never work" routine.
Makani was funded for 14 years! 14 years!! How many companies are willing to fund speculative research programmes in things unrelated to their core business for so many years? None, that I'm aware of.
Truth is Makani should have been shut down years ago. Government or corporate has nothing to do with it (that is, the same assessment would apply if it was funded by the government too). Their idea clearly wasn't competitive with the by now highly optimised wind turbine industry. It's not obvious why it ever was expected to be so.