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Steve Kovach   Chris Urmson, Google's former head of self-driving cars.Reuters/Stephen Lam GOOG Alphabet-C  819.24 5.57 (+0.70 %) Disclaimer Get real-time GOOG charts here » Google's parent company, Alphabet, lost some of its leading self-driving-car experts because they were offered large payouts based on the valuation of the company's self-driving-car division,  according to a new Bloomberg report . The large payouts gave the employees little incentive to stay at the company, and some left to begin their own self-driving-car startups and initiatives. Essentially, the staff members were paid so much that they quit, the Bloomberg report says. To be clear, it's likely the large payouts weren't the only factor that caused the employees to quit, but it appears to be a significant reason. A spokesperson for Waymo, the self-driving-car company that launched under Alphabet, declined to comment on the report. It's unclear how much the payouts were or who rec

Last year, Google introduced  local search ads and promoted pins  to wring a few extra dollars out of Maps. By extra, I mean potentially an additional  $1.5 billion in 2017  alone. Maps inherently have local intent; local intent has a high likelihood for conversion. No surprises there. But ads run counter to a quality user experience. We as advertisers can perform all the mental gymnastics we want, but the truth is, ads are a nuisance. Especially on maps. When you’re looking for a location, the last thing you want to see is a map resembling a pincushion or a shotgun’s scatter pattern. Striking the right balance between organic and paid listings is critical. Unfortunately, as the screen size shrinks, the challenge of balancing paid and organic gets magnified on the map. On desktop, there aren’t so many paid ads that you can’t find organic listings. In fact, it’s almost a happy compromise. You get to use Google’s mapping services for free; Google gets to turn a profit. Fair deal. Wi