Google blew $100 million a year building giant balloons to spread internet access. Insiders describe how Larry Page’s passion project imploded.

• In January, Alphabet announced it would shutter its internet balloon business, Loon.
• It followed years of inflating costs and geopolitical headaches for the team.
• Meanwhile, the company tried to conjure new ways to make money from cruise liners, offshore oil rigs, and more.

For years, images of Loon’s stratospheric balloons could be spotted throughout Google’s campuses. Employees pitching to advertising clients would sometimes slip in a picture or mention of the project in their otherwise dull, statistic-heavy decks. Occasionally, a balloon could be spotted drifting across the presentation welcoming new employees to the company. 

Wherever the balloon was seen, it was there to say the same thing: Google was way more than an advertising machine.

But last month, after nearly a decade of development, parent company Alphabet grounded the Loon project. The company’s desire for a global, balloon-driven internet dwarfed to financial woes, a failure to attract more outside capital, and a sinkhole of skyrocketing costs.