In its self-proclaimed drive to make the world a better place, Google has immersed itself in far more than Internet search and online ads. But driverless cars and a wind energy farm in the Atlantic Ocean?
It may not always be immediately apparent to frustrated investors — they wish management would be more frugal and focus more on the stock price — but there’s usually some calculated logic underlying Google’s unconventional strategy.
Google’s brain trust — founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, along with CEO Eric Schmidt — clearly think differently than most corporate leaders, and may eventually encourage more companies to take risks that might not pay off for years, if ever.
The time is ripe for long-term thinking, with memories still fresh of the financial meltdown — a byproduct of Wall Street’s demands for companies to deliver ever-higher profits every three months and meet earnings targets set by analysts.
“Everywhere you look in this country, it seems that we are suffering from the consequences of too much short-term thinking,” said longtime Silicon Valley forecaster Paul Saffo, managing director of foresight for Discern Analytics.
“Google doesn’t have this disease,” he said. “It is one of the few lone bright spots we have in that regard.”
Even so, it might be difficult to fathom how Google can justify paying for the development of robotic technology that has driven cars thousands of miles on California roads without a major accident and committing potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to help build a wind farm hundreds of miles from the Eastern Seaboard.
With a little imagination, it’s easier to see how Google might benefit. For instance, Saffo surmises that the driverless technology eventually could be implanted into a fleet of vehicles used for car sharing.
Google then could use a camera to take new pictures of streets and highways that…