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LearnFoundations of Innovation
Module 9•Unit 4 of 4•11 min

Case Study: Alphabet's Horizons

How Google's parent company structured itself around the three horizons - literally.

The Story

In 2015, Google reorganised itself into Alphabet - a structure that maps remarkably closely onto the three horizons. Horizon 1 is Google's core: Search and advertising, a hugely profitable engine improved incrementally. Horizon 2 holds fast-growing businesses like Google Cloud and YouTube - not yet as profitable as Search, but scaling toward becoming future cores.

Horizon 3 lives in the "Other Bets" - transformative, long-shot ventures like Waymo (self-driving) and Verily (life sciences). These are deliberately separated, funded as options, and measured on progress and learning rather than near-term profit. The whole structure exists to stop the profitable core from smothering the risky future.

Structure protects the horizons
Alphabet's key move was structural: by separating the Other Bets from the core, it ring-fenced H3 so it couldn't be raided or judged by Search's profit metrics. This is the balancing-the-portfolio lesson made concrete - the future is protected by design, not left to compete with the present.

Your Turn

Think it through, then reveal.

Discuss with your group

If your organisation drew an Alphabet-style map, what would sit in H1, H2, and H3? Is your H3 protected and measured on learning, or exposed and judged on profit?

Try this at work this week
Sketch your own three-horizon map with one or two items in each. For your H3 items, write the learning metric you'd judge them by - not profit. That single shift protects the future.

Sources

  1. Alphabet Inc. structure and "Other Bets" reporting, 2015-present.
  2. Baghai, Coley & White, The Alchemy of Growth, 1999.
  3. Public analyses of Google/Alphabet's innovation portfolio.
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