[deprave]

That has already happened. One of the reasons Goole renamed itself "Alphabet" and started using different brand names (e.g. "Waymo") for other products is to confuse consumers about their source. The "Google" brand has become synonymous with advertising and invasion of privacy, and the reversal of strategy (used to stick the brand on everything vs. isolating it to search and ads) is a hedge against the growing consumer distrust.

[dragonwriter]

I think you have that backwards; the move was to allow higher risk ventures to go forward with the chance of visible failure without harming Google's brand reputation which, contrary to your description, is actually quite strong.

[_pmf_]

This is another way of saying the same thing.

[LeifCarrotson]

No, deprave and dragonwriter are making opposite claims. Deprave is claiming that Google created new brands like Waymo and Alphabet so that the (claimed) distrust of Google would not negatively affect these ventures. Dragonwriter is claiming that Google created new brands so that if the new, risky ventures failed, those failures would not negatively affect the well-liked Google brand.

[deprave]

The premise that visible business failure harms brands is false. It's your opinion and it sounds like it makes sense, but it's not supported by any data.

[RickS]

> The premise that visible business failure harms brands is false.

Given that many forms of visible business failure literally cause brands to cease to exist, it seems indisputable that at least some of the time they're harmed.

[deprave]

Some of the times they're harmed, some of the times they're not. There's no correlation, ruling out the slightest possibility of causation. Is it risk management, then? No, because a product with a well known and trusted brand has much higher chances of success. Is Google internationally reducing the success chance of their billion dollar bets? No. The only reasonable conclusion to make is that Google doesn't want to taint their new offerings with the existing brand.

[1123581321]

What you describe in your first sentence is a correlation. Additionally, risk management sometimes involves preventing things that have never happened before.

We may just have to disagree on the value of Google. It seems obvious to me that it is a critical asset to Alphabet that must not lose search/product share before another Alphabet subsidiary pays off. I believe the purpose of spinning companies out of Google is more about improving capital allocation than protecting either brand, with the possible exception of Waymo if there is a huge backlash against autonomous vehicles.

[AliAdams]

Your logic is flawed.

"Some of the times they're not" does not exclude a potential correlation.

For example: "Some of the time, going to the hospital will not make me better, therefore there is no correlation between going to a hospital and getting better"

[rfrey]

>There's no correlation, ruling out the slightest possibility of causation

That sounds like an interesting study, where can I read it?

[mannykannot]

How well established is it that there is no correlation?

[dragonwriter]

> The premise that visible business failure harms brands is false.

Maybe, but it's a popular belief in business anyway; moreover, however true or false it is in general, I think it's pretty clear that Google, specifically, has a problem (whether rational or not) in some potential customer sectors with service/product discontinuations reflecting negatively on perception of other services/products under the Google brand, even if that is a sui generis effect rather than a reflection of a generally-applicable effect of product failure on brand image.

[watwut]

> The "Google" brand has become synonymous with advertising and invasion of privacy, and the reversal of strategy (used to stick the brand on everything vs. isolating it to search and ads) is a hedge against the growing consumer distrust.

I really don't think so. Even Microsoft is not there yet for most people.

[andybak]

> One of the reasons Goole renamed itself "Alphabet" and started using different brand names (e.g. "Waymo") for other products is to confuse consumers about their source.

Citation needed.

[dhimes]

Agree. It could easily also be about the legality of being a software company and a car company, and so on. After all, when you file corporate taxes you have to write down a number indicating your industry. I always wondered what they put there.