[rsj_hn]

I think this is the wrong approach. If you don't want to deal with an X$M/year company, you can sell it. Google isn't too big to sell stuff are they? They still sell advertising space, afterall. So take it to an IPO, collect the proceeds and use them to re-invest in more moonshots.

There is as much reason to shut down a profitable company as to throw away gold. That's literally what you are doing, and no one is too big to throw away money.

[exmadscientist]

Selling off is the obvious — and correct — answer.

But these companies were founded inside Alphabet, and grew within Alphabet's infrastructure. This is how they gained a decent chunk of their initial bootstrapping advantage, as described upthread by Chuck. To decouple them out into something suitable for sale is extra time and cost, and beancounters never like time and cost.

So, ironically, part of what makes these attempts possible at all is part of what ends up killing them.