I wish I could downmod for the overly sensational title. So Google's doing something that a lot of other big tech companies do, so what? If the article had said Google was starting a YC-clone, that would've been something.
This seems like such an obvious thing to do if you're a huge tech company, why hasn't MSFT or YHOO done this yet? I have a hard time thinking this is a good thing, the last thing we need is Google dominating the VC market.
As other people have pointed out, they might have. I imagine the reason it isn't successful is the same reason government sponsorship of startups isn't successful - bureaucracies tend to not work very well when it comes to having to often admit mistakes and changing course - sunk costs bias and all that.
In 2000, I briefly worked for a start up that was funded by a Lycos incubator. I'm almost positive that most big tech companies have similar programs. here's an old article about it - http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/1380.html
Yahoo has the brickhouse, but its not external though. Employees could come up with start ideas, take "time off" from their project for say 6months and build it. But ofcourse its a Yahoo property, but not really yours.
For some reason, it doesn't even seem to have the same appeal as YC. If given the choice, I would much rather work with YC. I'm a bigger fan of Paul Graham than I am of anyone in Google.
I'm a bigger fan of Paul Graham than I am of anyone in Google
You must not be aware of who works at Google... Peter Norvig and Guido van Rossum come to mind. Granted, in the domain of advising startups, Paul is both a lot more knowledgeable and accessible.
