There has been disappointingly little success from all of Google X's many investment dollars. I think with the hundreds of managers, institutional knowledge and helpful infrastructure comes a bureaucracy that kills a lot of what it creates.
you're right that Google X is a money sink - one of the first things Ruth Porat did when she came in is take an axe to it as it had been a sore point with instutitional investors for a while
"lets do Google X but with $100 billion" is a laughable business model
