system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why is Google abandoning an established brand and creating a new company called Alphabet?

I mean, it's one of the most recognizable brands in the world. WTH?  

What are they trying to accomplish? What are the risks?
gpt
Imagine you are running your own lemonade business, Lemon Party, and things are going fantastic. You expand into every neighborhood in your town. You start making cookies and they take off as well, as does the on-demand delivery business for your cookies and lemonade. Lemon Party is making consistent profits every year. You control the entire cookie and lemonade business of your town. 

You have enough money that you've been able to buy a few other companies and start some internal initiatives. Some are related to it, like your Iced Tea and Cupcakes. Others have little to do with the core lemonade-and-cookies business. A hovering skateboard, a robot that'll do your homework, everlasting bubblegum. 

Most of these new efforts are going to fail, and thats fine, but if they do succeed they'll be really profitable. The trouble is that everyone knows Lemon Party, and people sometimes associate your hover-skateboard business with the lemonade business. If hoverskatebaords fail, it has nothing to do with the strength of the main business. Further, while you are a terrific CEO, the original Lemon Party company is pretty mature and soaks up a lot of your time in day to day meetings.

So you decide to reorganize Lemon Party into a couple separate companies.  At the end of the day, you'll sum up their revenue and costs when reporting to mom and dad. You'll keep lemonade and cookies (and a few smaller supporting businesses, like delivery and Iced Tea) as one company, then a separate skateboard company, a separate homework robot company, etc.

If you need to layoff everyone from your skateboard business you can, and it wont affect the Lemon Party brand. You can focus more as CEO on these high-risk projects, and less on the core, profitable business that is pretty mature at this point. Reporting structures from the separate new businesses are more clear and you can evaluate each business more clearly and give it more or less resources as needed.