Xooglers Reveal Googley Dreams with Nightmares

July 18, 2025

Just a dinobaby without smart software. I am sufficiently dull without help from smart software.

Fortune Magazine published a business school analysis of a Googley dream and its nightmares titled “As Trump Pushes Apple to Make iPhones in the U.S., Google’s Brief Effort Building Smartphones in Texas 12 years Ago Offers Critical Lessons.” The author, Mr. Kopytoff, states:

Equivalent in size to nearly eight football fields, the plant began producing the Google Motorola phones in the summer of 2013.

Mr. Kopytoff notes:

Just a year later, it was all over. Google sold the Motorola phone business and pulled the plug on the U.S. manufacturing effort. It was the last time a major company tried to produce a U.S. made smartphone.

Yep, those Googlers know how to do moon shots. They also produce some digital rocket ships that explode on the launch pads, never achieving orbit.

What happened? You will have to read the pork loin write up, but the Fortune editors did include a summary of the main point:

Many of the former Google insiders described starting the effort with high hopes but quickly realized that some of the assumptions they went in with were flawed and that, for all the focus on manufacturing, sales simply weren’t strong enough to meet the company’s ambitious goals laid out by leadership.

My translation of Fortune-speak is: “Google was really smart. Therefore, the company could do anything. Then when the genius leadership gets the bill, a knee jerk reaction kills the project and moves on as if nothing happened.”

Here’s a passage I found interesting:

One of the company’s big assumptions about the phone had turned out to be wrong. After betting big on U.S. assembly, and waving the red, white, and blue in its marketing, the company realized that most consumers didn’t care where the phone was made.

Is this statement applicable to people today? It seems that I hear more about costs than I last year. At a 4th of July hoe down, I heard:

“The prices are Kroger go up each week.”
“I wanted to trade in my BMW but the prices were crazy. I will keep my car.”
“I go to the Dollar Store once a week now.”

What’s this got to do with the Fortune tale of Google wizards’ leadership goof and Apple (if it actually tries to build an iPhone in Cleveland?

Answer: Costs and expertise. Thinking one is smart and clever is not enough. One has to do more than spend big money, talk in a supercilious manner, and go silent when the crazy “moon shot” explodes before reaching orbit.

But the real moral of the story is that it is political. That may be more problematic than the Google fail and Apple’s bitter cider. It may be time to harvest the fruit of tech leaderships’ decisions.

Stephen E Arnold, July 18, 2025

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Business process, Business strategy, Management, News

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.