With Alphabet, Google faces a daunting challenge: Organising itself

Google’s self-professed mission is to organise the world’s information. But a company known for engineering excellence is still trying to solve the very human problem of how to organise itself.

Nearly two years ago, Google co-founder Larry Page announced the tech giant would be remade as Alphabet, a holding company whose units would include Google and an array of unrelated pursuits in areas such as healthcare, self-driving cars and urban planning.

Wall Street cheered. Previously those riskier ventures had been lumped into Google’s overall financial results. Investors would now see Google’s performance independent of its so-called “Other Bets,” an eclectic collection of 11 ventures. They include Nest, a maker of Wi-Fi enabled thermostats; Calico, which seeks to prolong the human lifespan; and X, the company’s secretive research lab.

Alphabet’s top management also aimed to boost accountability by appointing chief executives to head each of the Other Bets. Few people in Google’s constellation of ventures had ever held the title prior to that.

But so far Alphabet has failed to show it can convert its Other Bets from experiments to businesses with the reach, impact and money-making potential of Google’s core search and advertising operations. Interviews with two dozen former Alphabet executives and employees reveal an organisation grappling with how much time and resources Other Bets deserve in the pursuit of profitability.

In the first quarter, which ended March 31, the ventures lost a combined $855 million; that’s on top of a collective $3.6 billion loss for 2016. As a whole, Alphabet generated $90.3 billion in revenue in 2016. Google’s share of that revenue was $89.5 billion, while its 2016 operating income was $27.9 billion.

Alphabet’s early days have seen more pruning than expansion of its holdings.

The company has skinned back plans for Google Fiber, which delivers rapid Internet service in 10 metro areas. This month, Alphabet agreed to sell robotics company Boston Dynamics to Japanese multinational SoftBank Group Corp. It unloaded its Terra Bella satellite imaging business in February.

At one point last year, it was even looking to sell Nest, the largest of the Other Bets, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Google paid an eye-popping $3.2 billion for the start-up in 2014.

Meanwhile, a series of executives have departed since the reorganisation, including the heads of Nest, an Internet operation called Access and a venture capital firm known as GV.
 

An Alphabet spokesperson declined repeated requests for comment or to make executives available for interviews. Supporters of the restructuring frame the early struggles as typical growing pains.

For now, Wall Street isn’t worried: Alphabet’s stock is near an all-time high, having reached $1,000 per share in June. Ruth Porat, the no-nonsense chief financial officer who has steered the restructuring, has won rave reviews from investors for enforcing financial accountability across Alphabet.

Some Other Bets have made notable strides. Life sciences initiative Verily recently attracted $800 million in outside investment. Self-driving car project Waymo is considered among the leaders in the burgeoning industry.

Still, it’s not yet clear the structure will enable Alphabet to do what most companies cannot: conceive the next wave of innovation in-house or through the development of key acquisitions. That goal is central to both the company’s mission and investor expectations, analysts say.

“The reason Google gets to trade at a decent multiple… is because there’s a growth story beyond advertising,” said analyst James Wang of ARK Investment Management. The Alphabet structure is Google’s stab at an age-old corporate conundrum: sustaining innovation within a giant enterprise.

Alphabet’s strategy is to give entrepreneurs the autonomy of a startup, coupled with the discipline of a traditional corporate structure.

Roughly once a quarter, Other Bets leaders meet with the Alphabet board - comprised of Porat, Page, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and David Drummond, Alphabet’s senior vice-president of corporate development - to discuss funding and performance, according to two former employees.

Reuters