Out of view, Google’s real goal was to boost its share price, which had been stagnating. For years, Wall Street analysts had been struggling to evaluate Google’s bundle of other businesses outside of YouTube, Android, and its lucrative search engine. It had all these other businesses, too, like a smart thermostat company called Nest, a biotech research firm called Calico, a venture capital unit, and the “moonshot” X lab. Most of these divisions didn’t make any money, but if they were turned into separate firms housed under a parent company, that could loosen up the company’s balance sheet and
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