Rejecting incremental change in a quest to make sci-fi a reality -- an interesting perspective

In _The Atlantic_, Robinson Meyer talks about Google's 'Google X' projects and how trying to emulate sci-fi could be limiting Google's imagination.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/04/google-wants-to-make-science-fiction-a-reality-and-that-s-limiting-their-imagination/360699/

Key idea: they're only choosing projects that make big sweeping changes and actively rejecting incremental changes. That seems counter to how real change tends to work. Meyer's comments though are an interesting perspective on techological change and sci-fi's vision of it.