66-491: Alphabet Inc. is an American multinational technology conglomerate holding company headquartered in Mountain View, California . Alphabet is the world's second-largest technology company by revenue , after Apple , and one of the world's most valuable companies . It was created through a restructuring of Google on October 2, 2015, and became the parent holding company of Google and several former Google subsidiaries . It
132-429: A market inefficiency , which undervalues the true strength of these stocks. In her 1999 book No Logo , Naomi Klein provides several examples of mergers and acquisitions between media companies designed to create conglomerates to create synergy between them: A relatively new development, Internet conglomerates, such as Alphabet , Google's parent company belong to the modern media conglomerate group and play
198-447: A 2018 talk, Schmidt disclosed that the original inspiration for the name came from the location of the then Google Hamburg office's street address: ABC-Straße. Alphabet has chosen the domain abc.xyz with the .xyz top-level domain (TLD), which was introduced in 2014. It does not own the domain alphabet.com , which is owned by a fleet management division of BMW . Following the announcement, BMW said it would be "necessary to examine
264-401: A Series A round of $ 71 million along with Andreessen Horowitz and 20th Century Studios in music startup UnitedMasters , founded by Steve Stoute . In addition to funding startups, Alphabet also invests in more mature companies, including publicly traded companies like Uber and privately held companies like Medium . An analysis of the company's investments in 2017 suggested that it
330-492: A decade by Alphabet's Waymo (self-driving vehicle division). The proprietary technology is related to 14,000 documents believed to have been downloaded and stolen by a former Waymo engineer, subsequently employed by Uber. The lawsuit was settled in February 2018, with Uber agreeing not to use the self-driving technology in dispute and also agreed to provide Waymo with an equity stake of 0.34%, equating to around $ 245 million at
396-619: A different economic reality than the one we face today." In January 2024, Waymo, the autonomous driving division of Alphabet Inc., which operates extensively in San Francisco, filed an application with the California Public Utilities Commission to expand service in Los Angeles. Such a license would allow the company to make full use of its fleet in the city instead of test drives by invitation. In August 2024, following
462-480: A disorienting and demoralizing experience for executives at acquired companies—those who were not immediately laid off found themselves at the mercy of the conglomerate's executives in some other distant city. Most conglomerates' headquarters were located on the West Coast or East Coast , while many of their acquisitions were located in the country's interior. Many interior cities were devastated by repeatedly losing
528-540: A focus in Asia.) In Japan, a different model of conglomerate, the keiretsu , evolved. Whereas the Western model of conglomerate consists of a single corporation with multiple subsidiaries controlled by that corporation, the companies in a keiretsu are linked by interlocking shareholdings and a central role of a bank. Mitsui , Mitsubishi , Sumitomo are some of Japan's best-known keiretsu, reaching from automobile manufacturing to
594-534: A major role within various industries, such as brand management . In most cases, Internet conglomerates consist of corporations that own several medium-sized online or hybrid online-offline projects. In many cases, newly joined corporations get higher returns on investment , access to business contacts, and better rates on loans from various banks. Similar to other industries many companies can be termed as conglomerates. Sundar Pichai Pichai Sundararajan (born June 10, 1972), better known as Sundar Pichai ,
660-429: A new robotics software company spun out of X. In November 2021, Alphabet announced a new company named Isomorphic Labs , using artificial intelligence for drug discovery and headed by DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis . Alphabet is mainly owned by institutional investors, who own over 60% of shares. The founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are each controlling around 3% of all shares, but are controlling with other insiders
726-625: A small slice of many companies in a fund rather than owning shares in a conglomerate. Another example of a successful conglomerate is Warren Buffett 's Berkshire Hathaway , a holding company which used surplus capital from its insurance subsidiaries to invest in businesses across a variety of industries. The end of the First World War caused a brief economic crisis in Weimar Germany , permitting entrepreneurs to buy businesses at rock-bottom prices. The most successful, Hugo Stinnes , established
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#1732858194840792-437: A total revenue of US$ 110,855 million in 2017 and a net income of US$ 12,662 million. On February 1, 2016, Alphabet Inc. surpassed Apple to become the world's most valuable publicly traded company until February 3, 2016, when Apple surged back over Alphabet to retake the position. Experts cited Apple's lack of innovation as well as increasing Chinese competition as reasons for the poor performance. As of 2019, Alphabet
858-540: Is an Indian-born American business executive. He is the chief executive officer of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google . Pichai began his career as a materials engineer . Following a short stint at the management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. , Pichai joined Google in 2004, where he led the product management and innovation efforts for a suite of Google's client software products, including Google Chrome and ChromeOS , as well as being largely responsible for Google Drive . In addition, he went on to oversee
924-594: Is considered one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Amazon , Apple , Meta , and Microsoft . The establishment of Alphabet Inc. was prompted by a desire to make the core Google business "cleaner and more accountable" while allowing greater autonomy to group companies that operate in businesses other than Internet services. Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced their resignation from their executive posts in December 2019, with
990-472: Is currently China's largest civilian-run conglomerate by revenue. In South Korea , the chaebol is a type of conglomerate owned and operated by a family. A chaebol is also inheritable, as most of the current presidents of chaebols succeeded their fathers or grandfathers. Some of the largest and most well-known Korean chaebols are Samsung , LG , Hyundai Kia and SK . In India, family-owned enterprises became some of Asia's largest conglomerates, such as
1056-508: Is held by a subsidiary known as XXVI Holdings, Inc. (referring to the Roman numeral of 26, the number of letters in the alphabet), so that they can be valued and legally separated from Google. At the same time, it was announced that Google would be reorganized as a limited liability company , Google LLC. Eric Schmidt said at an Internet Association event in 2015 that there may eventually be more than 26 Alphabet subsidiaries. He also said that he
1122-456: Is ranked No. 15 on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. On January 16, 2020, Alphabet became the fourth US company to reach a $ 1 trillion market value entering the trillion dollar companies club for the first time. In October 2022, Alphabet recorded the weakest quarterly growth, with fewer sales in nearly a decade. The possible global recession,
1188-555: The Aditya Birla Group , Tata Group , Emami , Kirloskar Group , Larsen & Toubro , Mahindra Group , Bajaj Group , ITC Limited , Essar Group , Reliance Industries , Adani Group and the Bharti Enterprises . In Brazil the most important conglomerates are J&F Investimentos , Odebrecht , Itaúsa , Camargo Corrêa , Votorantim Group , Andrade Gutierrez , and Queiroz Galvão. In New Zealand, Fletcher Challenge
1254-641: The United States , conglomerates became popular in the 1960s as a form of economic bubble driven by low interest rates and leveraged buyouts. However, many of them collapsed or were broken up in the 1980s due to poor performance, accounting scandals, and antitrust regulation. In contrast, conglomerates have remained prevalent in Asia, especially in China , Japan , South Korea , and India . In mainland China , many state-affiliated enterprises have gone through high value mergers and acquisitions , resulting in some of
1320-788: The United States Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Alphabet, alleging anti-competitive practices. On 2 December 2020, the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint that claimed Alphabet Inc conducted unlawful monitoring and questioning of several workers at Google. The employees in question were fired for unionization attempts and protesting company policies. The board also alleges that Google unlawfully placed employees on administrative leave in retribution. Alphabet Inc has denied any wrongdoing and said it acted legally. On 7 June 2021, Alphabet Inc., announced it had settled an antitrust suit with
1386-572: The highest value business transactions of all time. These conglomerates have strong ties with the government and preferential policies and access to capital. During the 1960s, the United States was caught up in a "conglomerate fad " which turned out to be a form of an economic bubble . Due to a combination of low interest rates and a repeating bear-bull market , conglomerates were able to buy smaller companies in leveraged buyouts (sometimes at temporarily deflated values). Famous examples from
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#17328581948401452-440: The 1960s include Gulf and Western Industries , Ling-Temco-Vought , ITT Corporation , Litton Industries , Textron , and Teledyne . The trick was to look for acquisition targets with solid earnings and much lower price–earnings ratios than the acquirer. The conglomerate would make a tender offer to the target's shareholders at a princely premium to the target's current stock price. Upon obtaining shareholder approval,
1518-618: The 1980s, General Electric also moved into financing and financial services , which in 2005 accounted for about 45% of the company's net earnings. GE formerly owned a minority interest in NBCUniversal , which owns the NBC television network and several other cable networks . United Technologies was also a successful conglomerate until it was dismantled in the late 2010s. With the spread of mutual funds (especially index funds since 1976), investors could more easily obtain diversification by owning
1584-554: The Alphabet corporate code of conduct by the phrase: "Do the right thing". The original motto was retained in the code of conduct of Google, now a subsidiary of Alphabet. The key trends of Alphabet Inc. are (as at the financial year ending December 31): As per its 2017 annual report, 86% of Alphabet's revenues came from performance advertising (through user clicks using AdSense and Google Ads ) and brand advertising. Of these, 53% came from its international operations. This translated to
1650-723: The CEO role to be filled by Sundar Pichai , who is also the CEO of Google. Page and Brin remain employees, board members, and controlling shareholders of Alphabet Inc. On August 10, 2015, Google announced plans to create a new public holding company , Alphabet Inc. Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page made this announcement in a blog post on Google's official blog. Alphabet was created to restructure Google by moving subsidiaries from Google to Alphabet, thus narrowing Google's scope. The new holding company would consist of Google as well as other businesses including X Development , Calico , Nest , Verily , Fiber , CapitalG , and GV . Sundar Pichai ,
1716-764: The Class XII from Vana Vani school at IIT Madras . He earned his degree from IIT Kharagpur in metallurgical engineering and is a distinguished alumnus from that institution. He holds an M.S. from Stanford University in materials science and engineering, and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania , where he was named a Siebel Scholar and a Palmer Scholar, respectively. Pichai worked in engineering and product management at Applied Materials and in management consulting at McKinsey & Company . Pichai joined Google in 2004, where he led
1782-587: The French Autorité de la concurrence with a payment of $ 270 million. The settlement amounted to less than 0.7% of Alphabet Inc.'s yearly earnings. On 12 June 2021, it was announced that Japan would launch an antitrust probe into Alphabet Inc. and Apple Inc. to determine whether their dealings with Japanese smartphone makers violate current antitrust measures or could necessitate new ones. In May 2022, Russian authorities seized Google's Russian bank account, forcing them to file for bankruptcy one month later due to
1848-598: The United States, some of the examples are The Walt Disney Company , Warner Bros. Discovery and The Trump Organization (see below). In Canada, one of the examples is Hudson's Bay Company . Another such conglomerate is J.D. Irving, Limited , which controls a large portion of the economic activities as well as media in the Province of New Brunswick . Some cite the decreased cost of conglomerate stock (a phenomenon known as conglomerate discount ) as evidential of these disadvantages, while other traders believe this tendency to be
1914-403: The companies that are pretty far afield of our main internet products contained in Alphabet instead". He further stated that the motivation behind the reorganization is to make Google "cleaner and more accountable and better" and that he wanted to improve "the transparency and oversight of what we're doing". Former executive Eric Schmidt (now Technical Advisor) revealed in the conference in 2017
1980-546: The company topped $ 200 million in 2022, which many employees criticized in light of large scale layoffs that Google undertook in 2023. Pichai was included in Time ' s annual list of the 100 most influential people in 2016 and 2020. He was also included in the Time 100 AI list in 2024. In 2022, Pichai received the Padma Bhushan in the category of Trade and Industry from
2046-460: The company's Product Chief, became the new chief executive officer of Google, replacing Page, who transitioned to the role of running Alphabet, along with co-founder Sergey Brin. In his announcement, Page stated that the planned holding company would allow for "more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren't very related" to Google. He clarified that, as a result of the new holding company, Google would be "a bit slimmed down, with
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2112-474: The company's alleged plans for a "censored search app" in China, and its privacy practices. In response, Pichai told the committee that Google employees cannot influence search results. He also stated that Google users can opt out of having their data collected and that "there are no current plans for a censored search engine" in China. In December 2019, Pichai became the CEO of Alphabet Inc . His compensation from
2178-455: The conglomerate usually settled the transaction in something other than cash, like debentures , bonds , warrants or convertible debentures (issuing the latter two would effectively dilute its shareholders down the road, but many shareholders at the time were not thinking that far ahead). The conglomerate would then add the target's earnings to its earnings, thereby increasing the conglomerate's overall earnings per share . In finance jargon,
2244-517: The development of other applications such as Gmail and Google Maps . In 2010, Pichai also announced the open-sourcing of the new video codec VP8 by Google and introduced the new video format, WebM . The Chromebook was released in 2012. In 2013, Pichai added Android to the list of Google products that he oversaw. Pichai was selected to become the next CEO of Google on August 10, 2015, after previously being appointed chief product officer by then CEO Larry Page . On October 24, 2015, he stepped into
2310-462: The end came in January 1968, when Litton shocked Wall Street by announcing a quarterly profit of only 21 cents per share, versus 63 cents for the previous year's quarter. This was "just a decline in earnings of about 19 percent", not an actual loss or a corporate scandal, and "yet the stock was crushed, plummeting from $ 90 to $ 53". It would take two more years before it was clear that the conglomerate fad
2376-751: The examples are Adamjee Group , Dawood Hercules , House of Habib , Lakson Group and Nishat Group . In the Philippines , the largest conglomerate of the country is the Ayala Corporation which focuses on malls , bank , real estate development , and telecommunications . The other big conglomerates in the Philippines included JG Summit Holdings , Lopez Holdings Corporation , ABS-CBN Corporation , GMA Network, Inc. , MediaQuest Holdings , TV5 Network, Inc. , SM Investments Corporation , Metro Pacific Investments Corporation , and San Miguel Corporation . In
2442-475: The firm's early 2018 value. In October 2018, a class action lawsuit was filed against Google and Alphabet due to "non-public" Google+ account data being exposed as a result of a privacy bug that allowed app developers to gain access to the private information of users. The litigation was settled in July 2020 for $ 7.5 million with a payout to claimants of at least $ 5 each, with a maximum of $ 12 each. In October 2020,
2508-471: The first time. This surge follows the announcement of the company's first-ever dividend payout and a significant $ 70 billion stock buyback program. The company's first-quarter earnings also exceeded analyst expectations, further contributing to the positive investor sentiment. As of June 2024, the company is one of the 10 largest components of the MSCI KLD 400 Social Index . In November 2017, Alphabet Inc. led
2574-714: The headquarters of corporations to mergers, in which independent ventures were reduced to subsidiaries of conglomerates based in New York or Los Angeles. Pittsburgh, for example, lost about a dozen. The terror instilled by the mere prospect of such harsh consequences for executives and their home cities meant that fending off takeovers, real or imagined, was a constant distraction for executives at all corporations seen as choice acquisition targets during this era. The chain reaction of rapid growth through acquisitions could not last forever. When interest rates rose to offset rising inflation, conglomerate profits began to fall. The beginning of
2640-613: The inability to pay vendors and staff. However, free services such as Google Search, YouTube, Gmail, Maps, Android and Play were to remain available. In 2023, the company was criticized for conducting mass lay-offs without informing employees before they arrived to work, including many long-tenured and recently promoted employees. Around 12,000 jobs were cut, which reduced the company's workforce by 6%. According to various posts on social media, several Google employees discovered they had been terminated after they were unable to access their accounts and confirming it through news articles discussing
2706-460: The inspiration for this structure came from Warren Buffett and his management structure of Berkshire Hathaway a decade ago. Schmidt said he encouraged Page and Brin to meet with Buffett in Omaha to see how Berkshire Hathaway was a holding company made of subsidiaries with strong CEOs who were trusted to run their businesses. Before it became a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google Inc. was first structured as
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2772-466: The lawsuit filed by the United States Department of Justice in 2020, a United States district court has found Alphabet guilty of violating antitrust law. This marked the first antitrust ruling against a U.S. company in 24 years. Alphabet has appealed the ruling. Alphabet Inc. is the parent of a diverse set of subsidiaries: Tekedra Mawakana As of September 1, 2017, their equity
2838-460: The legal trademark implications" of the proposals. Additionally, it does not own the domain abc.com , which is the domain of the Disney -owned American Broadcasting Company . Google's mission statement , from the outset, was "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful", and its unofficial slogan is " Don't be evil ". In October 2015, a related motto was adopted in
2904-447: The majority of voting shares . The largest shareholders in December 2023 were: Sources: Page explained the origin of the company's name: We liked the name Alphabet because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity's most important innovations, and is the core of how we index with Google search! We also like that it means alpha‑bet ( Alpha is investment return above benchmark), which we strive for! In
2970-498: The majority vote on the board of directors. Sundar Pichai , the CEO of Google, assumed the CEO role at Alphabet while retaining the same at Google. The firm completed a stock split in mid-2022. On January 20, 2023, Pichai wrote a letter to all employees announcing that the company would be laying off about 12,000 jobs, or 6% of its global workforce. In the letter, Pichai wrote, "Over the past two years we've seen periods of dramatic growth. To match and fuel that growth, we hired for
3036-426: The mass layoffs. Conglomerate (company) A conglomerate ( / k ə ŋ ˈ ɡ l ɒ m ə r ə t / ) is a type of multi-industry company that consists of several different and unrelated business entities that operate in various industries. A conglomerate usually has a parent company that owns and controls many subsidiaries , which are legally independent but financially and strategically dependent on
3102-503: The most powerful private economic conglomerate in 1920s Europe – Stinnes Enterprises – which embraced sectors as diverse as manufacturing, mining, shipbuilding, hotels, newspapers, and other enterprises. The best-known British conglomerate was Hanson plc . It followed a rather different timescale than the U.S. examples mentioned above, as it was founded in 1964 and ceased to be a conglomerate when it split itself into four separate listed companies between 1995 and 1997. In Hong Kong, some of
3168-652: The new businesses they had recently purchased, and by the mid-1970s most conglomerates had been reduced to shells. The conglomerate fad was subsequently replaced by newer ideas like focusing on a company's core competency and unlocking shareholder value (which often translate into spin-offs ). In other cases, conglomerates are formed for genuine interests of diversification rather than manipulation of paper return on investment. Companies with this orientation would only make acquisitions or start new branches in other sectors when they believed this would increase profitability or stability by sharing risks. Flush with cash during
3234-495: The new position at the completion of the formation of Alphabet Inc. , the new holding company for the Google company family. Pichai had been suggested as a contender for Microsoft 's CEO in 2014, a position that was eventually given to Satya Nadella . In August 2017, Pichai drew publicity for firing a Google employee who wrote a ten-page manifesto criticizing the company's pro-diversity policies. In December 2017, Pichai
3300-815: The new position at the completion of the formation of Alphabet Inc., the new holding company for the Google company family. He was appointed to the Alphabet Board of Directors in 2017. Pichai was born on June 10, 1972 in Madurai , Tamil Nadu , India. His mother, Lakshmi, was a stenographer , and his father, Regunatha Pichai, was an electrical engineer at GEC , the British conglomerate . Pichai completed schooling in Jawahar Vidyalaya Senior Secondary School in Ashok Nagar, Chennai and completed
3366-539: The owner of Alphabet. The roles were reversed after a placeholder subsidiary was created for the ownership of Alphabet, at which point the newly formed subsidiary was merged with Google. Google's stock was then converted to Alphabet's stock. Under the Delaware General Corporation Law (where Alphabet is incorporated), a holding company reorganization such as this can be done without a vote of shareholders, as this reorganization was. The restructuring process
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#17328581948403432-731: The parent company. Conglomerates are often large and multinational corporations that have a global presence and a diversified portfolio of products and services. Conglomerates can be formed by merger and acquisitions , spin-offs , or joint ventures . Conglomerates are common in many countries and sectors, such as media , banking , energy , mining , manufacturing , retail , defense , and transportation . This type of organization aims to achieve economies of scale , market power, risk diversification , and financial synergy. However, they also face challenges such as complexity, bureaucracy , agency problems, and regulation . The popularity of conglomerates has varied over time and across regions. In
3498-484: The product management and innovation efforts for a suite of Google's client software products, including Google Chrome and ChromeOS , as well as being largely responsible for Google Drive . He went on to oversee the development of other applications such as Gmail and Google Maps . On November 19, 2009, Pichai gave a demonstration of ChromeOS; the Chromebook was released for trial and testing in 2011, and released to
3564-714: The production of electronics such as televisions. While not a keiretsu, Sony is an example of a modern Japanese conglomerate with operations in consumer electronics , video games , the music industry , television and film production and distribution , financial services , and telecommunications . In China, many of the country's conglomerates are state-owned enterprises , but there is a substantial number of private conglomerates. Notable conglomerates include BYD , CIMC , China Merchants Bank , Huawei , JXD , Meizu , Ping An Insurance , TCL , Tencent , TP-Link , ZTE , Legend Holdings , Dalian Wanda Group , China Poly Group , Beijing Enterprises , and Fosun International . Fosun
3630-547: The public in 2012. On May 20, 2010, he announced the open-sourcing of the new video codec VP8 by Google and introduced the new video format, WebM . On March 13, 2013, Pichai added Android to the list of Google products that he oversaw. Android was formerly managed by Andy Rubin , who was a director of Jive Software from April 2011 to July 30, 2013. Pichai was selected to become the next CEO of Google on August 10, 2015, after previously being appointed Product Chief by CEO, Larry Page . On October 24, 2015, he stepped into
3696-469: The strong US dollar, and the pandemics all contributed to the slowed economy. In 2022, Alphabet was the company with the second-highest expenditure on research and development worldwide, with R&D expenditure amounting to US$ 39.5 billion. In 2023, Alphabet was ranked 7th in the Global 2000 (World's Largest Public Companies). On 26 April 2024, Alphabet surpassed a market valuation of $ 2 trillion for
3762-406: The transaction was " accretive to earnings." The relatively lax accounting standards of the time meant that accountants were often able to get away with creative mathematics in calculating the conglomerate's post-acquisition consolidated earnings numbers. In turn, the price of the conglomerate's stock would go up, thereby re-establishing its previous price-earnings ratio, and then it could repeat
3828-425: The well-known conglomerates include Jardine Matheson (AD1824), Swire Group (AD1816), (British companies, one Scottish one English; companies that have a history of over 150 years and have business interests that span across four continents with a focus in Asia.) C K Hutchison Whampoa (now CK Hutchison Holdings ), Sino Group , (both Asian-owned companies specialize business such as real estate and hospitality with
3894-663: The whole process with a new target. In plain English, conglomerates were using rapid acquisitions to create the illusion of rapid growth. In 1968, the peak year of the conglomerate fad, U.S. corporations completed a record number of mergers: approximately 4,500. In that year, at least 26 of the country's 500 largest corporations were acquired, of which 12 had assets above $ 250 million. All this complex company reorganization had very real consequences for people who worked for companies that were either acquired by conglomerates or were seen as likely to be acquired by them. Acquisitions were
3960-631: Was a speaker at the World Internet Conference in China, where he stated that "a lot of work Google does is to help Chinese companies. There are many small and medium-sized businesses in China who take advantage of Google to get their products to many other countries outside of China." On December 11, 2018, Sundar Pichai was questioned by the United States House Judiciary Committee on a range of Google-related issues such as possible political bias on Google's platforms,
4026-472: Was completed on October 2, 2015. Alphabet retains Google Inc.'s stock price history and continues to trade under Google Inc.'s former ticker symbols "GOOG" and "GOOGL"; both classes of stock are components of major stock market indices such as the S&;P 500 and NASDAQ-100 . On December 3, 2019, Page and Brin jointly announced that they would step down from their respective roles, remaining as employees and still
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#17328581948404092-633: Was currently meeting with the CEOs of the current and proposed Alphabet subsidiaries. He said, "You'll see a lot coming." While many companies or divisions formerly a part of Google became subsidiaries of Alphabet, Google remains the umbrella company for Alphabet's Internet-related businesses. These include widely used products and services long associated with Google, such as the Android operating system , YouTube , and Google Search , which remain direct components of Google. Former subsidiaries include Nest Labs , which
4158-462: Was formed in 1981 from the merger of Fletcher Holdings , Challenge Corporation, and Tasman Pulp & Paper, in an attempt to create a New Zealand-based multi-national company. At the time, the newly merged company dealt in construction, building supplies, pulp and paper mills, forestry, and oil & gas. Following a series of bungled investments, the company demerged in the early 2000s to concentrate on building and construction. In Pakistan , some of
4224-533: Was merged into Google in February 2018 and Chronicle Security which was merged with Google Cloud in June 2019. Sidewalk Labs was absorbed into Google in 2021 following CEO Daniel L. Doctoroff 's departure from the company due to a suspected ALS diagnosis. In January 2021, Loon LLC CEO Alastair Westgarth mentioned in a blog post that the company would be shutting down, citing lack of a scalable and sustainable business model. In July 2021, Alphabet announced Intrinsic ,
4290-487: Was on its way out. The stock market eventually figured out that the conglomerates' bloated and inefficient businesses were as cyclical as any others—indeed, it was that cyclical nature that had caused such businesses to be such undervalued acquisition targets in the first place —and their descent put "the lie to the claim that diversification allowed them to ride out a downturn." A major selloff of conglomerate shares ensued. To keep going, many conglomerates were forced to shed
4356-476: Was the most active investor in that period, outdoing the capital arm of Intel and also its own best customer. Alphabet, Inc. acquired seven of its own capital-backed startups in the 2017 financial year, with Cisco second having acquired six of the company's previous investments. In 2017, Alphabet Inc. sued Uber over technology similar to Alphabet's proprietary self-driving car technology. Alphabet's autonomous vehicle technology had been under development for
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