Google's Moonshot X is Falling: Can Google Save Itself from Crashing Down to Earth?

In 2015, founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin formed a new group called Alphabet. This new holding company ventures in Google's most ambitious projects. Different independent divisions of which each has its own CEO operate under the Alphabet umbrella.

With the new projects and groups formed within the corporation, changes were noticeable. For the employees working in Google's core internet business, minimal changes were felt. Employees continue to enjoy the perks offered by the company. Sundar Pichai, serves now as Google's CEO.

But for the other venture capitals in Alphabet, not a Google name, moonshots are crashing down, and extreme pressures are being felt within the walls of Alphabet.

According to interviews conducted within the employees, spoke under their rights for anonymity, Larry Page focuses more in guiding Alphabet's experimental groups such as self-driving cars, smart contact lenses and other ambitious projects being created by Alphabet. The founder's support for these groups shows his strong commitment.

However, under Alphabet's CFO Ruth Porat, accountability and managing cost are more of their focus.

Two of Alphabet's venture capital arms, Verily and Alphabet's health research group, partly compensated employees based on the new class of Verily stock. One of the employees noted that incentives include opportunities to grow the division and share from its financial returns which is similar to a typical startup.

These changes in the compensation structure in Verily made employees feel at risk as Verily's stock could crash to zero unexpectedly.

A similar situation happened at Nest Labs, maker of smart home devices acquired by Google in 2014. According to a source, after Alphabet was created, Nest Labs executives who were initially promised with freedom of innovation with no financial restrictions, felt the pressure from higher management to cut cost. And they are now forced to pay for legal and public relations services which was previously being covered by Google.

Now, Alphabet's moonshot projects losses rose to $859 million in the 2nd quarter of this year. Alphabet's moonshot projects financial statements are under the category "Other Bets".

According to Wesley Chan, former Google executive before the creation of Alphabet, Google's concerns were not profitability and cost management and this practice did open a door for bold experimentation. He said, "There's still people that feel there's some boldness there, but it's grown up".

In the original letter of Larry Page, he announced that the changes happening within Alphabet-Google, was to make the company "cleaner and more accountable".

On Alphabet's employees' side, these changes and restructuring within the company hurt them the most in terms of not having the freedom for innovations, no job stability, and the lack of availing Rightful Compensation. Google's Fiber already laid off half of its staff and Boston Dynamics is said to be for sale.

Top executives, including Tony Fadell of Nest Labs, Bill Maris of Google Ventures and Chris Urmson of Google self-driving car group already left the company.