From TFA
The Google Books project also faced a copyright lawsuit, which was eventually decided in favor of Google.
After contacting major publishers about possibly licensing their books, [former head of the Google Books project] bought physical books in bulk from distributors and retailers, according to court documents. He then hired outside organizations to dissemble the books, scan them and create digital copies that could be used to train the company’s AI. technologies.
Judge Alsup ruled that this approach was fair use under the law. But he also found the company’s previous approach — downloading and storing books from shadow libraries like Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror — was illegal.
That wasn't done as a play for venture capital. The Google Books project began before eBooks existed; in the 2000s, they spent money on all kinds of projects that had no real strategy for monetization. I remember Google Books being a valuable resource as it digitized books that were out of print. Back when they actually cared about making information available widely.
Yeah. Weird that rchaud said "But nobody was ever going to that" when the article talks about someone doing it.
Disassemble*