To me, a business decision is always based on _relative_ risk to reward ratio. If you're a startup hiring employee number 3 vs Google hiring employee number 739813, your risk profile is completely different, but the absolute dollar investment in one employee is about the same. In that scenario hiring an employee number 3 could be a huge gamble in a way that hiring employee number 739813 could never be.
But lets leave out the technicalities. Call it a gamble, stupid investment, whatever. Yes, I agree a billion is a lot of money. Apple still needs to have this project, in order to stay relevant to competitors and current/potential employees. Even if it does fail, the side effects of having this project mainly to attract talented engineers and stay relevant make it worth the investment.
But lets leave out the technicalities. Call it a gamble, stupid investment, whatever. Yes, I agree a billion is a lot of money. Apple still needs to have this project, in order to stay relevant to competitors and current/potential employees. Even if it does fail, the side effects of having this project mainly to attract talented engineers and stay relevant make it worth the investment.