Google doesn’t often mention its mistakes. So it was surprising to hear at Analyst Day of a Google feature that doesn’t appear to be making the grade.
It’s an online hailer of cabs, using global positioning devices to find the nearest one. A Google exec explained that the cabs showed up to the pick-up location way before the actual fare, a fatal flaw for the time-sensitive taxi business.
Such frankness is part of a more mature and sober Google to emerge in the wake of troubling questions about Google’s future growth. The cab anecdote was meant to drive home Google’s larger point about the rigorous process Google applies when deciding how to spend its money.