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Google CEO Sundar Pichai Confirms 'Area 120' Corporate Incubator

This article is more than 7 years old.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai confirmed to FORBES that the company is planning to set up a new corporate incubator dubbed "Area 120."

The plans were first reported last month by The Information, a tech blog. Until now, the company had been mum on the subject. In an interview last week in which he discussed the future of search and of Google itself, Pichai suggested the program was still taking shape and its contours were not fully defined.

"We’ve always had a strong interest from within Google for people to go work on new things and have developed many of our products internally that way," he said. "At our scale, we want to make sure that there is a thoughtful way by which you give an avenue for those projects to be ambitious." He said there was a lot of internal interest in the idea.

Google famously has allowed its engineers and other employees to spend a day a week (or 20% time) on side projects, but the program has been pared down significantly. The company has also sought to satisfy the entrepreneurial itch of many of its employees in different ways, allowing some to start new projects internally, and using its venture arm, now called GV, to finance the startups of some of those who choose to leave.

Area 120 is a new approach, part incubator, part new take on the spirit of the 20% time program. (It's name, sometimes shortened to 120, is a reference to the 20% time idea).

"It is giving people a chance at 20% time more formally," Pichai said. Instead of spending a day a week on a side project, those accepted into the program may be able to spend six months on it, he said. And he said Google would lend its vast computing resources to incubate some projects.

"We also have large centralized infrastructure and services which people can take advantage of to go tackle new things, which is more like an incubator," Pichai said.

The Information's report suggested Google might invest in some of the project that are eventually spun off from Area 120 into independent companies. It also said the program would be under the direction of two long-time executives, Don Harrison, who heads corporate development, and Bradley Horowitz, who oversees Photos and other projects.

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