[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.