Alphabet’s Big Bets Shift to Cloud, Away From Moonshots

  • Google CEO Pichai pledges more hiring and investment in cloud
  • Executives ascribe Google Fiber pullbacks to strategy reset
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg
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Alphabet Inc. will focus its biggest bets next year on the staid world of business software and cloud computing, a marked departure from lofty "moonshots" of recent years, such as burrito-carrying drones and super-fast internet service.

Alphabet was formed last year, in part, to insulate the lucrative online advertising business of its Google division from riskier, more capital-intensive projects now called Other Bets.