Alphabet, Google's parent company and a major market-cap leader, owns the video-sharing website YouTube.
YouTube was founded in February 2005 by former PayPal employees Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. Google acquired the company in 2006 in a transaction valued at $1.65 billion in Google stock. YouTube continued operating as a recognizable service after the acquisition while becoming part of Google's wider internet business.
YouTube hosts user-uploaded videos, music videos, livestreams, educational material, news, and professionally produced programming. Its scale makes it one of the best-known online video platforms, but it is distinct from TikTok, Vimeo, and Dailymotion, which are separate services owned by other companies.
Alphabet was created in 2015 as Google's parent holding company. Google remains the most recognizable consumer brand within Alphabet, while YouTube is one of its major products. Market capitalization applies to Alphabet's publicly traded shares as a parent company, not to YouTube as a separately listed public corporation.