Google is a startup builder but also a bureaucracy that serves as a startup killer. I have a feeling that a lot of the projects Google creates would thrive if Google had budded them off, and only end up dying because they keep them living within the company. (For example, Google Reader, if budded off, would have just been Feedly a decade earlier, which is a fine standalone company.)
I think Google's scale is a problem here. They're always talking about the "next billion users". With that mindset, nothing short of hundreds of millions of users is a success.
