Moonshot’s and future domination 🧐

What are the nuggets? 💎

🔬 Origin: X was born out of Google’s original “20% time” policy (where engineers could spend 20% of their time on wild ideas). This led to the birth of projects so big, they needed their own entity.

🔬 Pivotal Moment: When Alphabet restructured in 2015, it split Google off from these “moonshot” projects, giving X its own playground. Now they’re free to go full mad scientist without the constraints of day-to-day search business.

⚗️ Secret Research Playground: X allows Alphabet to gather research and data on a global scale. Projects like Project Loon (internet balloons) or Wing (drone deliveries) aren’t just cool experiments, they're collecting vast amounts of data about global logistics, infrastructure, and even airspace regulations. This gives Alphabet an unmatchable dataset that it can leverage in industries no one else has even entered yet.

⚗️ Patents = Power: When they do achieve something big, they file patents like they’re going out of style. Whether it's for self-driving cars, AI applications, or renewable energy, those patents give Alphabet massive legal and technological control over future industries. Any company wanting to play in these spaces will need to either pay Alphabet or play by their rules.

⚗️ First-Mover Status: By owning the space in futuristic tech, they’re ensuring they’ll dominate markets that don’t even exist yet. Competitors have no idea how to catch up because Alphabet is already planting flags in the future.

⚗️ Government in Their Pocket: The other huge benefit, is that when you’re working on tech that literally shapes the infrastructure of tomorrow, governments become interested. X gives Alphabet a seat at the table with policymakers. X are influencing laws, and shaping the regulatory landscape in their favor before their competitors even get off the ground.

⚗️ Mindshare: And if we zoom out eveen further, you can see the broader game at hand. You know how people say "Google it"? That’s not just dominance in search, that's brand entrenchment. X helps Alphabet entrench its brand into the very fabric of society. Whether it’s flying drones or autonomous vehicles, X makes Alphabet synonymous with innovation. If one of their projects becomes the next iPhone-level hit, they’ve already become the face of the industry.

⚗️ So what’s so secret?: Alphabet doesn’t even reveal everything to investors. They bundle X’s finances into broader Alphabet reporting, so no one really knows how much is being spent, or how close they are to striking gold. It’s the fog of innovation that keeps competitors guessing and Alphabet always two steps ahead.

⚗️ Funding: Having Alphabet as a parent company is very similar to having the ultimate rich parent who wants you to start a rock band because, hey, it might work.

Recommendation 🌟

Laying Out The Figures 💵