I've seen a lot of comparisons to Berkshire. Not every large conglomerate is Berkshire.
Berkshire is composed of pre-existing businesses that were themselves successful before being purchased. They are not experimental ventures that need to be subsidized. It is exactly the opposite: money is plowed into the strongest businesses. They each generate excess cash, and it is easier to reinvest that cash in some places than others. The conglomerate structure makes it possible to put the cash where it gets the best returns without having to pay taxes or transaction fees.
Alphabet has none of these properties, except the ability to allocate capital tax-free, but they already had that as Google.
Berkshire is pretty explicit about using the firehose of cash that their insurance businesses throw off, as well as the huge amounts of premium float they have, as capital for their other more profitable businesses.
Berkshire is composed of pre-existing businesses that were themselves successful before being purchased. They are not experimental ventures that need to be subsidized. It is exactly the opposite: money is plowed into the strongest businesses. They each generate excess cash, and it is easier to reinvest that cash in some places than others. The conglomerate structure makes it possible to put the cash where it gets the best returns without having to pay taxes or transaction fees.
Alphabet has none of these properties, except the ability to allocate capital tax-free, but they already had that as Google.