Yesterday’s announcement that Google Labs will be shutting its doors set off a major flurry of conversation and speculation. This announcement is a big deal in the context of innovation. It remains to be seen what the impact will be on Google’s growth trajectory – and we may not have a clear picture for years. But, this announcement also adds fuel to the discussion about how innovation gets funded. Google Labs was unique because so few companies today are as bold as Google has been about the need for the free reign of ideas and imagination.

When CEO Larry Page uttered the words “…we’re very careful stewards of shareholders money” in explaining the rationale for the new direction, he no longer sounded like the Google visionary that wowed the world. He sounded like the typical CEO explaining an earnings report to investors.

Google Labs was also one of the BIG things that made Google “cool”. I will especially miss the annual list of the “10 coolest experiments from Google Labs”. Each experiment made the mind race with expectation about the next possible revolution that Google would unleash. Today is a sad day for innovation.