FC : THE TRUTH ABOUT GOOGLE X: AN EXCLUSIVE LOOK BEHIND THE SECRETIVE LAB'S CLOSED DOORS

[JMS]

http://www.fastcompany.com/3028156/united-states-of-innovation/the-google-x-factor

THE TRUTH ABOUT GOOGLE X: AN EXCLUSIVE LOOK BEHIND THE SECRETIVE LAB'S CLOSED DOORS

SPACE ELEVATORS, TELEPORTATION, HOVERBOARDS, AND DRIVERLESS CARS: THE TOP-SECRET GOOGLE X INNOVATION LAB OPENS UP ABOUT WHAT IT DOES--AND HOW IT THINKS.

Astro Teller is sharing a story about something bad. Or maybe it's something good. At Google X, it's sometimes hard to know the difference.

Teller is the scientist who directs day-to-day work at the search ­giant's intensely private innovation lab, which is devoted to finding unusual solutions to huge global problems. He isn't the president or chairman of X, however; his actual title, as his etched-glass business card proclaims, is Captain of Moonshots--"moonshots" being his catchall description for audacious innovations that have a slim chance of succeeding but might revolutionize the world if they do. It is evening in Mountain View, California, dinnertime in a noisy restaurant, and Teller is recounting over the din how earlier in the day he had to give some unwelcome news to his bosses, Google cofounder Sergey Brin and CFO Patrick Pichette. "It was a complicated meeting," says Teller, 43, sighing a bit. "I was telling them that one of our groups was having a hard time, that we needed to course-correct, and that it was going to cost some money. Not a trivial amount." Teller's financial team was worried; so was he. But Pichette listened to the problem and essentially said, "Thanks for telling me as soon as you knew. We'll make it work."

At first, it seems Teller's point is that the tolerance for setbacks at Google X is uncharacteristically high--a situation helped along by his bosses' zeal for the work being done there and by his parent company's extraordinary, almost ungodly, profitability. But this is actually just part of the story. There happens to be a slack line--a low tightrope--slung between trees outside the Google X offices. After the meeting, the three men walked outside, took off their shoes, and gave the line a go for 20 minutes. Pichette is quite good at walking back and forth; Brin slightly less so; Teller not at all. But they all took turns balancing on the rope, falling frequently, and getting back on. The slack line is groin-high. "It looked like a fail video from YouTube," Teller says. And that's really his message here. "When these guys are willing to fall, groan, and get up--and they're in their socks?" He leans back and pauses, as if to say: This is the essence of Google X. When the leadership can fail in full view, "then it gives everyone permission to be more like that."

Failure is not precisely the goal at Google X. But in many respects it is the means. By the time Teller and I speak, I have spent most of the day inside his lab, which no journalist has previously been allowed to explore. Throughout the morning and afternoon I visited a variety of work spaces and talked at length with members of the Google X Rapid Evaluation Team, or "Rapid Eval," as they're known, about how they vet ideas and test out the most promising ones, primarily by doing everything humanly and technologically possible to make them fall apart. Rapid Eval is the start of the innovative process at X; it is a method that emphasizes rejecting ideas much more than affirming them. That is why it seemed to me that X--which is what those who work there usually call it--sometimes resembled a cult of failure. As Rich DeVaul, the head of Rapid Eval, says: "Why put off failing until tomorrow or next week if you can fail now?" Over dinner, Teller tells me he sometimes gives a hug to people who admit mistakes or defeat in group meetings

[Predicto]

Sounds like they are trying to be the Bell Labs of the 21st century.  

[JMS]

Sounds like they are trying to be the Bell Labs of the 21st century.

I think Bell Labs was industry specific. I think I would compare googlex with Menlo Park. Investigating everything and anything they think is cool and worrying about the commercial viability after the fact.