[ChuckMcM]

Interesting take on it, I would probably write the headline "Alphabet spends nearly $1B trying to find new businesses". Using the New York times logic nearly $15.3B was lost last quarter by startups[1] :-) But setting aside that Google's spending as much as 6% of the existing startup ecosystem, they are still not spending a material amount of their free cash flow of nearly $7B last quarter.

And I wonder Why not?

[1] http://nvca.org/pressreleases/15-3-billion-venture-capital-d...