What are you calling a big bet and what are you calling a death? You may not be interested in a slow death but there are firms who make their money on it; Lyco

What are you calling a big bet and what are you calling a death? You may not be interested in a slow death but there are firms who make their money on it; Lycos is still around (with employees!), Yahoo can continue to exist in a decreased fashion for another easy 20 years. Blowing the company away on a "big bet" like throwing all of your money into self-driving cars or something is a bad business move, why not sell it to one of the firms that will put it into milk-mode?