While I was at Google X, I worked on an effort to build a robot hivemind. Here’s what I learned about “data network effects”.

About a month ago, my partners @martin_casado and @peter_lauten argued in a great blogpost that data network effects are mostly bullshit. I could not agree more! Every one of their insights maps directly to some aspect of my experience at X.

First, some context: The ultimate goal of our robotics project was to leverage the combination of Machine Learning and Distributed Systems to enable robots to learn from each other’s experience in order to effectively operate in unstructured environments with limited sensor data...

While I was at Google X, I worked on an effort to build a robot hivemind. Here’s what I learned about “data network effects”.

About a month ago, my partners @martin_casado and @peter_lauten argued in a great blogpost that data network effects are mostly bullshit. I could not agree more! Every one of their insights maps directly to some aspect of my experience at X.

First, some context: The ultimate goal of our robotics project was to leverage the combination of Machine Learning and Distributed Systems to enable robots to learn from each other’s experience in order to effectively operate in unstructured environments with limited sensor data...