Google X faces innovator's dilemma: Wow factor has to pay | Internet of Things & Wearable Technology Insights | Scoop.it

Has Google's moment of radical innovation been exposed as only that? A moment? In an economy where everyone is counting on innovation, and counting on the private sector to provide it, two events at the end of last week leave me worried.


The first one was Google's plunging share price. The company is still doing well. But suddenly shareholders came face to face with what in Canada we might call "the Nortel realization." That is, the sudden comprehension that a share price based on expectations of ever higher future returns cannot be sustained by high, but constant, returns.


The other event was ostensibly positive. For the first time, the world's biggest internet search company gave a reporter a behind-the-scenes look at Google X, the company's division charged with engineering a radical future....