‘Area 120’: Google’s in-house startup incubator

To stop Google employees from jumping ship to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams, Sundar Pichai has come up with a new plan: Create a startup incubator within Google, according to The Information.

The in-house startup incubator is called “Area 120” and will be overseen by long-time Google executives Don Harrison and Bradley Horowitz. According to The Information, Google hopes that the incubator could stem the flow of talent to competing companies. For instance, the company recently lost Regina Dugan, the powerful former head of the Advanced Technologies and Projects group that developed tech like Project Tango, to Facebook.

The name "Area 120" is a reference to Google's famous "20 percent time." 20 percent time made its first appearance in Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s 2004 IPO letter: "We encourage our employees, in addition to their regular projects, to spend 20% of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google," they wrote. "This empowers them to be more creative and innovative. Many of our significant advances have happened in this manner."

Big 20 percent successes have included the development of Google News, Gmail, and AdSense. But there have been questions for years as to whether 20 percent time actually exists at Google at all anymore.

A preview of how Area 120 will work:

• First, teams within Google will submit a business plan and apply to join Area 120.
• If successful, the teams will get to work full-time on their idea for a few months.
• They'll then have the opportunity to pitch Google for additional funding and create a new company (which Google will invest in).

Area 120 is expected to encourage more of entrepreneurial spirit to stay within Google, which was also part of the rationale behind the creation of Alphabet, the larger parent company Google is now a part of.When Google debuted Alphabet last year, Larry Page wrote that one of its goals was "empowering great entrepreneurs and companies to flourish," some of whom might not want to build their companies within Google proper.

The new plan will allow entrepreneurial Googlers and their teams to develop their ideas with Google's support and funding and potentially branch out with Google as an investor. Area 120 will be located inside one of Google's San Francisco office buildings, reports The Information.