Google Reinvents a Japanese Concept But for Non-Employees. True Innovation!
July 1, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I gave some talks in Osaka and Tokyo a number of years ago. I met and interacted with a number of bright people. A couple of MITI people and I chatted about the differences between Japanese views of large databases and the US views of massive agglomerations of digital information. The Japanese wanted a database to apply to something specific at that time. I mentioned that some US professionals just wanted to collect as much digital information as possible and then wait until suitable sense-making tools became available. We talked about other data ideas. In those discussions I learned about a Japanese concept: Bunsha.
One of the gifts I received from Kinokuniya (one of my commercial hosts) were two slim English language books: Bunsha. Improving Your Business through Company Division and Bunsha. Company Division. What Good Is a Stuffed Tiger? After leaving Japan, I added a third book: To Expand We Divide. The Practice and Principles of Bunsha Management. I wrote about the management principles in my November 15, 2022, article “Discovering Bunsha.”
Thanks, MidJourney. Good enough.
This morning I spotted in my newsfeed this story: “Google Taps Its Alumni Network for a New AI Startup Incubator.” Ah, ha. I think this management method is, “I will love you in the morning” or “Gee, we’re sorry we forced you out.” The article says:
as some of the company’s most capable people leave to start their own AI ventures, an incubator built around alumni keeps Google close to them, and close to whatever they build next.The move would slot into machinery Google has already assembled.
Of course, this is a completely Googley idea. It is like the company’s “clever” search algorithm from way back in the Backrub days. Google is an innovator.
The write up continues:
The appeal of that focus is practical: a former employee needs no introduction to the company’s systems, its researchers, or its models, which makes the relationship cheaper to build and quicker to put to use. The reason such a channel makes sense is the talent exodus it answers. Former staff from Google and DeepMind, along with alumni of OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI, have raised hundreds of millions of dollars for ventures only months old. Venture investors have funneled roughly $18.8bn into AI startups founded since the start of 2025, much of it chasing names recognizable from the labs that built today’s frontier models. For a company watching senior researchers walk out to incorporate, an incubator is a way to convert a loss into an early-stage stake.
As the MITI people told me and the Bunsha books make clear, management expertise is required to recognize an employee with a good idea who could leave. Bunsha says, “Keep them as part of the family.” The “leave taking” is a bit of wordsmithing. The Google approach is the opposite. People quit. Google has done little to cultivate the “family” angle. Even the Xoogler group in Silicon Valley has faded from my radar.
Google’s approach is to say, “We have a great idea. Let’s fund those whom we let leave, terminated, or humiliated.”
Will it work? Sure. Google has money, and I think taking money from a reputable and trusted source like Google is worth a flier. What happens if an idea flops? Well, one can find one’s future elsewhere I suppose.
According to the write up, Google is doing PR about its novel, unique, completely original management method. Will it burst into a garden of innovation? I am not able to predict the future. I can react to Google’s innovative approaches by looking at the leapfrog technology used to reduce functionality of YouTube TV, the semi forced insertion of smart software in places I don’t want smart software, and the cute changes made to the Android operating system. With inventions like these, imagine what Google will do with Xoogler products and services. I can imagine a multi-pronged future. One of those prongs is a bit of desperation and a realization that the downhill run may be nearing the club house.
Stephen E Arnold, July 1, 2026
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