<story><title>Loon’s final flight</title><url>https://blog.x.company/loons-final-flight-e9d699123a96?gi=b913b3d1667e</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ogre_codes</author><text>I think the days of Google Moonshots are coming to a close. In general Google hasn&amp;#x27;t been very good at shooting for the moon. They&amp;#x27;ve lost their leadership and vision and all that&amp;#x27;s left is a giant advertising behemoth.&lt;p&gt;Did any of their moonshots really hit the mark or even come close?</text></item><item><author>Mistri</author><text>People often make fun of Google&amp;#x2F;Alphabet for their graveyard of failed initiatives&amp;#x2F;products. While some of it might be warranted, projects like this—that strive to solve a large, global issue through somewhat charitable actions—are generous and have only increased my respect for the Google&amp;#x2F;Alphabet&amp;#x2F;X team. I hope they don&amp;#x27;t get flamed for this, and hopefully some of their research and donation funds can live on and solve the issue that Loon originally intended to one day.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ptero</author><text>I think the main problem is they lost the edge on execution. Traditional &amp;quot;vision&amp;quot; is not strictly needed for moonshot projects; the vision for moonshots is provided by a small team working on their idea. But should the technology start panning out, the company needs to focus aggressively on finding a commercial home for this technology.&lt;p&gt;And this is where I think google (and many big companies) fail. Technologically, Loons worked. I did not believe it when I read about those, but looking at the trajectories in public ADS-B data (those balloons self-advertise) it is clear that they move as designed, doing 2D positioning using only vertical control and can stay afloat for months. Wow! Mission accomplished. But commercially, nothing happened.&lt;p&gt;I do not know if it was because business types were not sold on it and did not build a commercial case; did the technical team simply live in their own bubble not talking to the outside; something else? But a 10-year &amp;quot;moonshot&amp;quot; project that pans out technologically and fails commercially indicates that the right hand (&amp;quot;internal VC&amp;quot;) does not know or care what the left hand (techies) is doing, which is the problem at the company. My 2c.</text></comment>
<story><title>Loon’s final flight</title><url>https://blog.x.company/loons-final-flight-e9d699123a96?gi=b913b3d1667e</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ogre_codes</author><text>I think the days of Google Moonshots are coming to a close. In general Google hasn&amp;#x27;t been very good at shooting for the moon. They&amp;#x27;ve lost their leadership and vision and all that&amp;#x27;s left is a giant advertising behemoth.&lt;p&gt;Did any of their moonshots really hit the mark or even come close?</text></item><item><author>Mistri</author><text>People often make fun of Google&amp;#x2F;Alphabet for their graveyard of failed initiatives&amp;#x2F;products. While some of it might be warranted, projects like this—that strive to solve a large, global issue through somewhat charitable actions—are generous and have only increased my respect for the Google&amp;#x2F;Alphabet&amp;#x2F;X team. I hope they don&amp;#x27;t get flamed for this, and hopefully some of their research and donation funds can live on and solve the issue that Loon originally intended to one day.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>antupis</author><text>Brain is doing great and Waymo probably at least hits close.</text></comment>