In a letter they released on Tuesday, they explained that while they will continue to advise and stay on the board, they are removing themselves from day to day responsibilities. Thats an interesting claim, because the Alphabet structure had freed them of a lot of those responsibilities already, allowing them to pursue the bigger, moonshot-y ideas they preferred to corporate wranglings.Page also pursued his passions, while doing a disappearing act that didnt live up to the more accountable part of the bargain.
Hes inheriting a sprawling entity thats more determined by the ambitions and fever dreams of the cofounders than what necessarily makes sense for the worlds most important search, video, and artificial intelligence company.
Breaking out Google from the as-yet-unprofitable Other Bets, like the capital intensive health-care division Verily or new spin-offs like Loon, makes the companys financial reporting more palatable to bankers and analysts. Also, by making the individual CEOs responsible for the performance of their domains, they might find themselves more compelled to make their divisions profitable.
That depends on whether you think the move made the pieces more valuable, or whether it created a mlange of companies worth less than the sum of its parts.
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