Boston Dynamics employees were frustrated by Google's plan for a household robot

Re:Boston Dynamics employees were frustrated by Google's pla... by ocdtrekkie on Saturday May 28, 2016 @11:40PM (#11794652)

Google got everything it wanted from Motorola. A phone manufacturer wasn't what they were looking for.

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Re:Boston Dynamics employees were frustrated by Google's pla... by Zigurd on Sunday May 29, 2016 @03:10PM (#11797760)

Google got out of owning Motorola at a $9.5 billion loss, modulo some real estate and the patents.

The Nortel patent portfolio sold for $4.5 billion, which was higher than Google was willing to pay.

Andy Rubin did not like what Samsung was doing with Android and wanted a captive OEM. This doubled Google's headcount, it changed Google's financial numbers materially, it cost a fuckton of money even at Google scale at a time when it was apparent that no phone OEMs were very profitable, and it was strategically incoherent.

Andy Rubin was exactly the right guy to make Android a success. But buying Motorola and intending to keep it as a captive OEM was a large mistake.

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