The announcement of Google’s new holding company, Alphabet, initially led to near-universal bafflement among the tech cognoscenti: why would Google, an industry leader, create such upheaval?

The most immediate benefit may simply be that CEO Larry Page, who is stepping away from day-to-day management, can spend more time playing with Legos.

Even in the early days of Google, cofounders Page and Sergey Brin would let their minds wander to other seemingly impossible projects beyond the already ambitious task of building a search engine to change how millions use the Internet.

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