Among the world's richest companies by market cap, Alphabet owns the search engine Google.
Alphabet Inc. became Google's parent company when a corporate restructuring took effect in October 2015. Google remained the central business, while Alphabet provided a broader holding-company structure for Google and several other ventures. Larry Page became Alphabet's chief executive at formation, and Sundar Pichai became Google's CEO.
Google's major activities include internet search, online advertising, YouTube, Android, and cloud services. Alphabet's other operations have included businesses associated with self-driving technology, life sciences, and internet access. These activities are reported separately from Google's main advertising and technology businesses.
Alphabet is often confused with Google because Google is by far the best-known Alphabet subsidiary. They are not identical corporate entities, however. Alphabet trades publicly under the ticker symbols GOOG and GOOGL, while Google is the operating company and brand most people encounter online.