How Could Google Possibly Top Its Latest “Moon Shot”?
I thought I’d stopped being surprised with Google’s moves a long time ago. After thoroughly dominating the search market, each announcement of a new product or service from the company, after an initial wave of headlines, quickly falls into more of a “It’s Google. Why not?” level of passive attention for many people.
Self-driving cars, Fiber's ultrafast Internet service provider, Google Glass—the fervor that comes from the announcement of each of these inventions seems to die out more quickly than Google would prefer.
I don’t think Google will have to worry about this happening with Calico, its latest venture. How could millions, if not billions, of people come to rely heavily on Calico in the future? Because it may be keeping us all alive.
The cover of the latest issue of Time magazine boldly asks the question, “Can Google Solve Death?” While this sounds like a bit of a reach—worded to entice supermarket shoppers to bite at such a seemingly ridiculous question, much less an actual ambition—it’s exactly what Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page and Apple board chairman Art Levinson are out to accomplish. In a recent interview with Time, Page states:
I’m not proposing that we spend all of our money on those kinds of speculative things. But we should be spending a commensurate amount with what normal types of companies spend on research and development, and spend it on things that are a little more long-term and a little more ambitious than people normally would. More like moon shots.
In a recent press release, Page gets a little more specific regarding the almost laughable “a little more ambitious” intentions of Calico:
Illness and aging affect all our families. With some longer term, moonshot thinking around healthcare and biotechnology, I believe we can improve millions of lives.
A moon shot, by definition, is an act with a huge risk but an even bigger reward. Google certainly risks failing, but they definitely wouldn’t be the first to fail at “cheating death,” “reversing aging,” or even curing a disease like cancer. The reward for actually succeeding at any of these goals is to stay in the minds—and headlines—of the world for a heck of a lot longer than an announcement about another gadget.
What will Google wow us with next? Only time will tell, but Page tells us in his latest Google+ post, “… don’t be surprised if we invest in projects that seem strange or speculative compared with our existing Internet businesses.”
Should we be surprised with the news of anything that Google decides to direct its minds and money toward? Should we even be surprised when they succeed?
