<p><img src="https://static3.businessinsider.com/image/600b26d1917cdb001148a2f6-2400/20171018-5d3_2995_1_1.jpg" border="0" alt="Loon" data-mce-source="Source: Loon." data-mce-caption="Loon."></p><p></p><bi-shortcode id="summary-shortcode" data-type="summary-shortcode" class="mceNonEditable" contenteditable="false">Summary List Placement</bi-shortcode><p>In 2015, Google blew up up its corporate structure and became a subsidiary of a new holding company called Alphabet. It also spun out some of its "other bets" into separate entitiesa savvy way to keep working on riskier ideas without hurting Google's bottom line.</p><p>But just over five years later, several of these so-called "moonshots" have failed to launch. On Thursday, the company announced it was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/alphabet-google-internet-balloon-startup-loon-2021-1">shutting down</a> Loon, Alphabet's project to deliver internet access to the furthest reaches of the world using high-altitude balloon satellites.</p><p>Loon took off in 2013 inside Google's skunkworks division, and was spun out into its own company in 2018. But Alphabet no longer sees a sustainable business in Loon's idea, it said.</p><p>Loon joins a growing pile of corpses in the Alphabet graveyard, which include energy kits company Makani and cybersecurity company Chronicle.</p><p>To be sure, some of the tech giant's risky bets are still promising. Self-driving car company Waymo has <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/alphabet-waymo-raises-over-2-billion-first-outside-funding-round-2020-3">continued to gather momentum</a>, while life sciences division Verily has found a new purpose during the pandemic by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/verily-has-completed-more-than-7000-covid-19-tests-2020-4">offering screening and testing services for COVID-19</a>.</p><p>Here are some Alphabet divisions that failed to go it alone, or are currently drifting in the wind.</p><h3>Loon, balloons that can deliver internet to the worldFailed to launch</h3><img src="https://static6.businessinsider.com/image/600b18ef933f110019311231-400-300/loon-balloons-that-can-deliver-internet-to-the-world--failed-to-launch.jpg" alt="" /><p><p>Loon's goal was to provide internet access using – you guessed it – balloons. The project was formed within Google's moonshot incubator, Google X, in 2013 and graduated into an Alphabet company in 2018.</p><p>But Alphabet no longer sees Loon as a sustainable business, and has grounded the project for good. "The road to commercial viability has proven much longer and riskier than hoped," wrote X's "captain," Astro Teller, in <a href="https://blog.x.company/loons-final-flight-e9d699123a96">a blog post</a> announcing the shutdown.</p><p>There were times when Loon's future looked optimistic. Last year, it launched its first commercial service in Kenya, with 35 balloons covering a 50,000-square-kilometer region.</p><p>Loon said a small number of employees will stay on to help wind down the project, while it's working to help others find different jobs across Alphabet.</p></p><br/><br/><h3>Makani, a suite of 'renewable energy kites'Ended last flight in 2020</h3><img src="https://static6.businessinsider.com/image/5eb5d5245785321af2241672-400-300/makani-a-suite-of-renewable-energy-kites--ended-last-flight-in-2020.jpg" alt="" /><p><p>Makani Power, a startup which had the idea of using "energy kites" instead of wind turbines, was bought by Google in 2013 and lived in the Google X division until 2019, when it was deemed mature enough to be spun out as its own Alphabet company.</p><p>But it was to be a short-lived flight. In February 2020, Makani CEO Fort Felker announced the company was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/makani-power-generating-kite-shutting-down-2020-2">parting ways with Alphabet because of uncertainties about the future roadmap.</a></p><p>While most of the employees moved on, Google X said that a small handful stayed on to debrief the company on what they'd learned. Shell was "exploring options" to continue developing the technology, but <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/makani-commemorates-end-of-life-with-movie-shell-deal-fails-2020-9">told Business Insider</a> in September that it wouldn't take Makani forward.</p><p>X did <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch'v=qd_hEja6bzE">put out a nice film</a> to commemorate Makani's end, however.</p></p><br/><br/><h3>Sidewalk Labs, a high-tech smart city planAbandoned its biggest project</h3><img src="https://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5eb5d4965785321a6a2c1ef6-400-300/sidewalk-labs-a-high-tech-smart-city-plan--abandoned-its-biggest-project.jpg" alt="" /><p><p>Sidewalk Labs is Alphabet's urban innovation bet that wants to make cities more efficient using technology.</p><p>Its most ambitious goal was to develop a 12-acre high-tech neighborhood in Toronto, which would cost over $1 billion. The project was shuttered last year after pushback from residents, although Sidewalk Labs CEO Daniel L. Doctoroff said the decision had been made due to economic uncertainties arising from the pandemic.</p><p>The project had been under intense scrutiny for years over how it planned to handle residents' data, as well as fears that the development would outprice lower-wage workers in Toronto.</p><p>It's not clear what happens next for Sidewalk Labs. Its spinoff, Sidewalk Infrastructure Partner, is still powering ahead, and recently <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/07/sidewalk-infrastructure-partners-looks-to-make-ca-power-grids-more-reliable-with-a-100-million-investment/">unveiled a project</a> for improving the efficiency of power grids.</p><p>But it seems unlikely that another Toronto will be on the cards for Sidewalk Labs any time soon.</p></p><br/><br/><h3>Access/Google Fiber, high-speed internetFloundering since 2016</h3><img src="https://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5c5c864970a61e251c69cb4a-400-300/accessgoogle-fiber-high-speed-internet--floundering-since-2016.jpg" alt="" /><p><p>Google Fiber, which lives under Alphabet's Access division, has seen its fair share of setbacks over the years. Since it <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-isnt-shutting-down-its-fiber-business-2016-10">hit pause on development in 2016</a> with the departure of Access CEO Craig Barratt, it has been very slow to expand beyond the initial handful of cities it arrived in.</p><p>It suffered a particularly bad moment in 2019 when it failed to roll out the gigabit service to Louisville, Kentucky, and announced it would kill the project.</p><p>This was due to the company using "shallow trenching" to bury its cables, which became exposed, requiring a total restructuring of the project.</p><p>Rather than do so, Alphabet announced that users' service would end and it would abandon the project entirely, covering the cleanup costs on its way out.</p><p>Fiber is another highly ambitious, costly venture for Alphabet, one that the company has scaled back on. It would be an easy one to nix, although the current pandemic and Google's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-ceo-elaborates-future-office-plans-as-employees-demand-answers-2020-10">shifting views on remote working</a> could also encourage Alphabet to keep trying.</p></p><br/><br/><h3>Chronicle, cyberattack defense companyBecame part of Google Cloud in 2019</h3><img src="https://static5.businessinsider.com/image/55e8b86bbd86ef14008b80a6-400-300/chronicle-cyberattack-defense-company--became-part-of-google-cloud-in-2019.jpg" alt="" /><p><p>Cybersecurity company Chronicle, designed to help businesses protect themselves from cyberattacks, was cooked up inside of Google's X moonshot factory and became a fully-fledged company under Alphabet in 2018.</p><p>Its first product, Backstory, took a company's total tech infrastructure and then let users analyze it for threats in an easy-to-understand way. </p><p>But in 2019, shortly after Backstory launched, Chronicle CEO Stephen Gillett announced that the company would become part of Google Cloud.</p><p>The reasoning made sense – the two parts complimented each other nicely – but it was an unusually fast turnaround time for an Alphabet subsidiary to be brought back into the mothership. While the products live on, Chronicle as a project is, effectively and sadly, dead.</p><p>Gillett <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/verily-coo-google-plans-to-shuffle-leadership-power-2020-11">recently became</a> chief operating officer of Verily, another Alphabet moonshot company.</p></p><br/><br/><h3>Jigsaw, a think tank to solve the internet's darkest problemsAbsorbed back into Google</h3><img src="https://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5eb5e0913dac9a1a7776bfdd-400-300/jigsaw-a-think-tank-to-solve-the-internets-darkest-problems--absorbed-back-into-google.jpg" alt="" /><p><p>Jigsaw, originally known as Google Ideas, was spun out as an Alphabet incubator in 2016 to tackle some of the internet's more sinister problems, such as cyberattacks and online harassment. </p><p>In February 2020, <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/google-swallows-another-alphabet-unit-jigsaw">The Information</a> reported that Jigsaw had been quietly moved back under Google management. CEO Jared Cohen is still with the company, which continues to operate as a separate body, albeit now under Google's roof.</p><p>While it's not clear why Jigsaw was re-absorbed into the Google mothership, the incubator had seen its fair share of internal turmoil over the years. </p><p>A damning report from <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vb98pb/google-jigsaw-became-toxic-mess">Motherboard</a> in 2019 exposed a toxic work culture inside the company, with female employees being subjected to sexist remarks and discrimination. The situation was so bad that several employees left the company, citing its culture as the reason.</p></p><br/><br/><h3>Smart-home device company Nest Labs was sucked back into Google, along with AI research lab DeepMind Health.</h3><img src="https://static5.businessinsider.com/image/59c29e6238d20d2b008b8aa3-400-300/smart-home-device-company-nest-labs-was-sucked-back-into-google-along-with-ai-research-lab-deepmind-health.jpg" alt="" /><p><p>Nest Labs was acquired by Google for $3.2 billion in 2014 and operated independently for its first few months, before being spun out under Alphabet in the big 2015 re-org.</p><p>Tony Fadell, the former Apple engineer who co-founded Nest Labs, left the company the following year, after many months of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/whats-going-on-at-nest-2016-2">rumors about Nest's tough working environment.</a></p><p>Then, in February 2018, Nest was sucked into Google's hardware division and remaining co-founder Matt Rogers announced he would leave the company. Over time, Nest has become more fully merged with Google's hardware products.</p><p>Alphabet's AI company DeepMind <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-deepmind-ai-science-protein-folding-drugs-2020-11">has been generating a lot of buzz</a>, but its health division was absorbed by Google in 2019.</p><p>It was a controversial move: DeepMind, which considered itself a separate entity to Google, had existing contracts with the UK's National Health Service that had to be renegotiated. Now that team is part of Google's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-health-strategy-identity-alphabet-flux-2020-9">latest effort to crack healthcare</a>.</p></p><br/><br/>
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