[gimmeThaBeet]

This has no weight to it but is just sort of my anecdotal perception, my feeling from googlers I know directly or indirectly feels like, I guess I would say a lot are really vigilant of career risk?

The vibe I always get is that they won't hesitate to abandon stuff that doesn't get huge fast, but a big part is that the manager or teams don't want to get stuck with something that isn't a juggernaut or obviously on its way.

And heck, maybe that is just everywhere, but anecdotally at google, from an outside observer, it looks like the culture dictates being on the 'Big Thing' is how you succeed there.