Alphabet, the parent company of Google and a major market-cap leader, was created in 2015.
Google announced the restructuring in August 2015, and Alphabet became the publicly traded parent company in October of that year. Larry Page became Alphabet's chief executive, while Sundar Pichai became Google's CEO.
The structure separated Google's core internet businesses from several other ventures, such as life sciences and research projects. Google itself retained products including Search, YouTube, Android, Chrome, and Google Cloud.
Alphabet is not the same company as Google, although Google is its largest and best-known subsidiary. A frequent mistake is to use Google's 1998 founding date as Alphabet's creation date. Google was founded in 1998; Alphabet was established as the corporate parent in 2015.