Thoughts
I think the Alphabet creation/split really killed the culture at Google.
I have no evidence to back this up of course. But it seems like Google had this great culture of experimentation.
I'm just thinking back, Google did Google Maps in 2005 at a time when they were a *much* smaller company.
Now they have a much larger budget, and they're not doing the same types of things. I think part of that is that Alphabet exists and Google has been relegated to handling the day-to-day operation of existing products. Google's not supposed to branch out and do self driving cars or anything radically different. On the flip side, Alphabet is the *parent* company. They're bigger and so they have to be operated like an investing firm. They don't have a "culture of experimentation"—they're trying to diversify a portfolio.
I think Google would be in a lot better place today if they had created an R&D subsidiary instead of a holding company.