Self-driving cars -> Not only has it become its own company (Waymo) but it also motivated many other companies to tackle the same problem and develop self-driving tech of its own.
Life Sciences, Google Contact Lenses -> Now its own company, Verily.
Google Brain -> I quote Astro Teller "It would be fair to say Google Brain (now called the Neural Network Project) is producing in value for Google something that would be comparable to the total costs of Google X — just that one thing we’ve spun out." https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/googles-captain-of...
Hard science and engineering problems take non-trivial amounts of resources to solve. How many start-ups are tackling the kinds of problems that X is trying to solve?
Much of this isn't "pure" Google development, yes. And god knows Google has woeful privacy policies (personally, I use StartPage, and try to use Google services as little as I can) but to think of them as serial-money-wasters is a bit rich.
Also, that needless, typical HN, "big companies bad, startups good, free markets GOAT" bit at the end is really wearisome.
What does that mean? Would we all have been better off if Bell Labs hadn't gone off on tangents? Even if Google do it poorly why would you care?
What is it about Google X that doesn't really lend to either real product development, or even cool tech (of late?). For the amount of money they put into it, I expect a lot more output.
At their core they are still a big company and attract the kinds of people who want to work for a big company. Usually, this at direct odds to people who seek out the startup environment. There are some notable exceptions but the basic premise generally holds true.