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.
They may benefit from the firehose, but were already self-sufficient without it.
That’s in stark contrast to the Google/Alphabet model, where there’s no way driverless cars could exist independent of the adwords firehose.
It’s waaaay more speculative. On the order of VC investing. Rather than Berkshire’s value investing.
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.