Innovative risk taking or hubris?

Innovation and risk-taking is part of a manager’s job. But sometimes hubris, which is excessive pride or overconfidence, might cause managers to make foolish mistakes. It is sometime difficult to distinguish between smart projects and foolish hubris-driven projects.

Googles founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, invested in a number of so-called “moonshot” projects in a special division of Google called X, sometimes called the Moonshot Factory – accounted for as “Other Projects” in financial statements. The 8 most famous moonshot projects are listed in the article below:

https://www.entrepreneur.com/science-technology/8-of-the-coolest-projects-to-come-out-of-x-googles/326836Links to an external site.

1. Loon: using high altitude balloons for internet
2. Makani: using kites to harness wind for energy
3. Google Glass: eye glasses with a virtual reality display
4. Free Space Optics: using lasers to transmit internet
5. Waymo: self-driving cars
6. Wing: flying drones to deliver goods
7. Verily: smart contact lenses for medical diagnosis
8. Malta: energy storage using molten salt

In 2018, the two founders of Google stepped down as co-CEOs. The new CEO, Sundar Pichai, shut down a number of X projects within 18 months of becoming CEO.

Other Bets lost $4.8 billion in 2019, up from $3.4 billion in 2018. Google had revenues of $160 billion and $34 billion net income in 2019. A number of these projects, costing over $8 billion of investment, were shut down by the new CEO Sundar Pichai. Two examples of shutdown projects are listed below:

Makani:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsvK-7GNJZgLinks to an external site.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jilliandonfro/2020/02/18/alphabet-shutters-its-energy-kite-company-makani/?sh=2c2888e12b20Links to an external site.

Loon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rfrgzVrRnwLinks to an external site.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/21/alphabet-cancels-loon-project-to-beam-internet-to-earth-from-balloons.htmlLinks to an external site.

https://www.makeuseof.com/why-did-google-project-loon-fail/Links to an external site.

Some projects, like Waymo are still active and ongoing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA_-MkU0NfwLinks to an external site.

https://robbreport.com/motors/cars/waymos-decreased-30-billion-valuation-spells-trouble-for-the-company-2903848/Links to an external site.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhqtVoVIuRsLinks to an external site.

Waymo is valued at $30 billion, but used to be valued at $200 billion – value has dropped as the difficulties of self-driving cars has slowed implementation. Waymo is currently trialing its technology in San Francisco.

Question: Do you think that the Loon and Manaki projects were high risk mistakes arising from the hubris of the original founders, or were they smart projects with high potential?