People seem to forget that one of the first things Jobs did was get rid of Apple’s Advanced Technology Group and focused research on profitable products.
Google’s lack of focus explains why it has had five failed messaging apps.
And they have a few bets that with time and some luck could make them a lot of money.
It's very likely they would be able to cover their investments, at the very least.
And they have ackuired many new capabilities as a result.
It makes for a better financial future, a stronger company long term, and also, contributing so much value to the world is simply a good thing.
In 2001 Google probably only sold search ads.
Today they sell ads on so many digital places, some of those they own.
As for the question of "long term" - Google X was founded only 9 years ago.
That probably a reasonable time for a drug startup to show sucsess.
And they recently started testing self-driving cars with no safety driver , with real passengers. So they're close to some deployment.
That seems quite good.
Microsoft has released Azure.
Saying that a Google sells ads in more places is about as “diversified” as saying Apple sells iPhones on more carriers.
YouTube profits from selling ads, that's true.
Yes YouTube makes all of their money from selling ads. But it's fate is highly independent from Google search. That's diversification.
Same idea goes for Other Google businesses.
As for Apple - it's less diversified than it seems: the fate of the watch, for example, is highly dependent on the fate of the iPhone.
That philosophy was Steve Jobs' key insight back than. Today many companies excel at magical ux design.
And sure, their control over iOS and their rich clients allow them to do stuff others cannot. And definetly, it's incremental innovation.
But that's very little innovation, considering their size or compared to their competitors - Google AI and moonshots, Amazon(where do i even begin), or Microsoft(Cloud and their research efforts).