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Ruth Porat (left), Sundar Pichai, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Photos by Bloomberg; illustration by Mike SullivanGoogle’s Parent Trap
The creation of Alphabet was supposed to help Google invent its next blockbuster technologies. Instead, it sparked turf battles while doing little to help its audacious new projects escape the regulatory scrutiny surrounding the Google brand and become big businesses.
In early 2015, Google co-founder Larry Page had a problem. His once nimble startup had become a slow-growing behemoth, missing out on big tech innovations and struggling to incubate new products.
Page’s answer was Alphabet, a new corporate entity that would allow Google’s cash cow—its search engine—to coexist alongside wildly ambitious new projects. These included plans to build smart cities, extend life and reinvent cars. Google’s new Alphabet siblings could flourish without the baggage of the Google brand and bureaucracy while giving investors a clearer idea of how much the projects were costing the company, Page believed.