NEW YORK: Google, the online giant, believes working on "moon shot" innovation projects which disrupt or create entirely new categories will play a vital role in its future growth.
Speaking to Wired, Larry Page, Google's chief executive, suggested "moon shot" ideas such as building self-driving cars and augmented reality glasses were essential, rather than being a sideline.
"Incremental improvement is guaranteed to be obsolete over time. Especially in technology, where you know there's going to be non-incremental change," said Page. "So a big part of my job is to get people focused on things that are not just incremental."
Page cited Google's video-sharing site YouTube, web browser Chrome, mobile operating system Android and email service Gmail as demonstrating this ideal in practice.
"Periodically, every 'n' years, you should work on something new that you think is really amazing. The trick is coming up with those products. I could probably give you a list of ten major things that are wrong with email. I try to maintain lists like that in my head."
More specifically, creating a "tremendous research organisation" alone is not enough, because being "focused on commercialisation" is ultimately equally central to success. "You need both," Page said.
Although a dedicated unit, Google X, oversees the firm's activities in emerging fields from robotics to neural networks at present, the long term goal is much broader.
"I think we need to be doing breakthrough, non-incremental things across our whole business. But right now Google X does things that can be done more independently," said Page.
Fostering a culture that encourages this type of innovation is also paramount, as few adequate sources of preparation exist for pursuing such an objective.
"It's not easy coming up with moon shots," Page said. "There's no degree for that. Our system trains people in specialised ways, but not to pick the right projects to make a broad technological impact."
Google's products currently have 1bn users around the world, and while it frequently improves these offerings to enhance the customer experience, taking a wider focus holds substantial possibilities.
"I feel like there are all these opportunities in the world to use technology to make people's lives better," said Page. "At Google we're attacking maybe 0.1% of that space. And all the tech companies combined are only at like 1%. That means there's 99% virgin territory."
Speaking to Wired, Larry Page, Google's chief executive, suggested "moon shot" ideas such as building self-driving cars and augmented reality glasses were essential, rather than being a sideline.
"Incremental improvement is guaranteed to be obsolete over time. Especially in technology, where you know there's going to be non-incremental change," said Page. "So a big part of my job is to get people focused on things that are not just incremental."
Page cited Google's video-sharing site YouTube, web browser Chrome, mobile operating system Android and email service Gmail as demonstrating this ideal in practice.
"Periodically, every 'n' years, you should work on something new that you think is really amazing. The trick is coming up with those products. I could probably give you a list of ten major things that are wrong with email. I try to maintain lists like that in my head."
More specifically, creating a "tremendous research organisation" alone is not enough, because being "focused on commercialisation" is ultimately equally central to success. "You need both," Page said.
Although a dedicated unit, Google X, oversees the firm's activities in emerging fields from robotics to neural networks at present, the long term goal is much broader.
"I think we need to be doing breakthrough, non-incremental things across our whole business. But right now Google X does things that can be done more independently," said Page.
Fostering a culture that encourages this type of innovation is also paramount, as few adequate sources of preparation exist for pursuing such an objective.
"It's not easy coming up with moon shots," Page said. "There's no degree for that. Our system trains people in specialised ways, but not to pick the right projects to make a broad technological impact."
Google's products currently have 1bn users around the world, and while it frequently improves these offerings to enhance the customer experience, taking a wider focus holds substantial possibilities.
"I feel like there are all these opportunities in the world to use technology to make people's lives better," said Page. "At Google we're attacking maybe 0.1% of that space. And all the tech companies combined are only at like 1%. That means there's 99% virgin territory."
Data sourced from Wired; additional content by Warc staff
