Nadella I think brought focus on ideas and prioritization that complimented Ballmer's ideas. He doesn't need to launch new projects, but ensure they are managed into a place of relevance. In that regard, it really showcases the excellent people MSFT has in the chain and how they can help each other get to where they collectively want to go.
Many people, logically, would arrive to this conclusion. When the treatment starts, one is even energized. Then, in the middle a person regrets being so optimistic at all. They find their assumption of life being better than death more naive than they could have imagined.
It's not just the treatment. It is the wider picture of your life stopping. And within that context your body, deteriorating, is only one component.
I am quite optimistic IO and cell based therapies will minimize these techniques. But there's more baking to be done before they can be rolled out. The "primitive" techniques can be quite reliable for specific cancer variants.
The CFS group at MIT is trying to build a larger test reactor to show Q > 1 results. In some cases, it is a matter of scaling up (construction work) a hypothesis.
Agreed on your research point within the context of one approach in one company.
That said, having worked at Google there are many folks who were there prior to this shift (and unwittingly assisted by doing nothing previously). I don't blame them for trying to correct course and actually hope they can do so while remaining at a workplace they have spent so much time and effort developing and integrating within.
The Paypal app was late, and didn't really support the seamless Venmo experience, because initially Venmo allowed you to sign up with a CC and ate the fees. Later, with enough momentum and usage, they moved people to direct deposit by adding the CC fee and giving some other incentives.
The company was acquired, along with BrainTree, by Paypal to bolster their mobile and API-driven payments in the present age.
I believe his foundation is allowing other people to contribute in the way he and Melinda have setup so well. With that said, I like that our largest influencers are tackling problems at various stages. Finding the ideal mix will take time (this is all in the last 15 years for the names being dropped).
I think having multiple approaches was the key here. Worse case scenario these teams converge, but the true best case scenario is discovery of different methods to solve Google's ambitions.
In some ways, the depth of the search team needs to be replicated by their AI-research groups. As you stated, what is unclear is if the investments will be obviously lucrative (as search has been).
I'm a PM and feel this is the case as well. I've seen massive migrations as one type of 'maintenance' wrapped as a launch that led to promotions, but generally the best way to go about it was join a rapidly growing project (G+) with user-facing impact.
Also, it's perfectly acceptable to enter new markets through acquisitions and apply Google's innovations there. That is a form of innovation in my opinion.
It's not an individual that is making these decisions, it's a complicated set of groups, technologies, and directions.
Does that mean having bad user experiences is justified? No. But it's incredibly complicated to tie together such large projects (at a complexity most people won't fathom) and do it well.
I would look at it the other way and be amazed how good some of the things work.
I transferred to the Motorola division so I kind of have both perspectives while being at Google.
In some regard, a lot of Googlers don't even know how good they have it. What Google manages to do pretty well is pick the right people for 'the company' and then acclimatize them extremely fast to everything: process, tools, lifestyle and sometimes koolaid.
In doing so are we infants? Perhaps. But fundamentally this is no different than what all children go through (acclimatization to their environment).
I'm not sure working for some crummy company, or a startup means one life is better than the other - they are different. And if you're lucky enough to be able to choose that then that is awesome.