I spent time at Google and found this to be the case as well. I think the only "cure" for this is good upper management that is isn't swayed by the flavor of the moment hype, and also a culture of being monomaniacally product-focused.
Places that are intensely product-focused aren't immune from frothy hype, but at least it's forced through the critical filter of "ok but what does this do for our product really", which is a vital part of separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to new ideas.
My main beef with Google is that the company's culture is intensely not product-focused. The company's defined by its origin story of a groundbreaking technology that happened upon product-market fit, and it's pathologically unable to do the opposite: start with a clear-eyed product vision and working backwards to the constituent technologies.
Places that are intensely product-focused aren't immune from frothy hype, but at least it's forced through the critical filter of "ok but what does this do for our product really", which is a vital part of separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to new ideas.
My main beef with Google is that the company's culture is intensely not product-focused. The company's defined by its origin story of a groundbreaking technology that happened upon product-market fit, and it's pathologically unable to do the opposite: start with a clear-eyed product vision and working backwards to the constituent technologies.