Alphabet Inc. was created in 2015 as the parent company of Google.
Google began as a search-engine project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were graduate students at Stanford University. The company was incorporated in 1998, and its search service became the foundation for a much broader technology business.
Alphabet's 2015 restructuring placed Google Search, YouTube, Android, and related products inside a Google subsidiary. Other ventures, including Waymo and Verily, became separate Alphabet businesses. This arrangement let Google focus on its core internet products while Alphabet supervised the wider corporate group.
A common mix-up is treating Google and Alphabet as interchangeable names. Google is the operating company and brand behind the best-known products; Alphabet is the parent corporation and publicly traded entity created through the reorganization.