Failure is a feature: how Google stays sharp gobbling up startups

Ben Popper looks at Google’s decade of acquisitions (and click through for a much larger version of the above chart):

I stepped out of my car in the parking lot of Google’s Mountain View headquarters and, not having a clue which way to go, started following the man ambling down the sidewalk wearing a very odd backpack. A giant spherical camera stuck up behind his shoulders, bouncing above his head like a floating eyeball, capturing everything around us, slurping up oceans of data. We turned the corner and I did a double take as a driverless car slowly cruised by. It was a pair of first impressions that reminded me just how wide ranging and intellectually ambitious Google has become.