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The Search for Innovation and Growth
LET’S START WITH the stories of two acquisitions.
In August 2011, Google announced the acquisition of the bulk of Motorola.1 No one had thought of Motorola as being particularly innovative in a long time, despite the firm’s best attempts. Instead, for many years, the company had focused on filing successful patents. Employees who successfully filed patents were rewarded with a bonus of several thousand dollars. Researchers who made at least ten patent filings sported gold-colored employee badges, while those with at least twenty-five wore platinum-hued ones. Additional financial bonuses were associated with reaching these plateaus.
As a consequence, there was a strong emphasis at Motorola on making a large ...
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