I'm not so sure. Googles core product is search and that has been fairly rock solid as long as it has existed. A lot of the fuckery has been around their other products and I think the company could probably afford to shut down most of them and continue to run fine.
I always wonder if the other projects are just retainer projects. They dont really care as much what happens, they just dont want those engineers on the open market.
I think they saw Microsoft miss the Next Big Thing™, and they're afraid it could happen to them, so they're investing in everything while the AdSense/AdWords cash cows last.