>The fundamental problem is that there's just way too much heterogeneity for senior leadership to possibly understand all the company's lines of business. Which means that it's impossible to make thoughtful, intentional decisions about all of it at the corporate level.
Enormous Japanese and Korean companies don't seem to have this trouble, and they're far more heterogeneous than any American company. Yamaha for instance makes boat engines and high-end pianos and audio electronics.
This isn't Google-specific. Based on my own first-hand experience working in a Global 500 company, I'm inclined to say that it's actually inevitable in any sufficiently large company with a sufficiently large range of business.
The fundamental problem is that there's just way too much heterogeneity for senior leadership to possibly understand all the company's lines of business. Which means that it's impossible to make thoughtful, intentional decisions about all of it at the corporate level. I'm guessing the best strategy is to focus on the bread-and-butter business, and treat all the rest with a sort of benign neglect. That seems to be what Google is doing. But you can't neglect things indefinitely - you do need to occasionally clean out the hallway closet and get rid of all the stuff you didn't even remember you had.