Google is the Alphabet subsidiary that operates Google Search, YouTube, and the Android operating system.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google while they were doctoral students at Stanford University. The company's search technology became widely known for ranking pages partly through links between websites, helping it build a dominant position in online search and digital advertising.
Google became a subsidiary of Alphabet in 2015, when Alphabet was created as a holding company for Google and several other businesses. The reorganization separated Google's core internet products from ventures such as Waymo and Verily, although Google remains Alphabet's central operating company.
Google's importance to Alphabet's market value comes largely from advertising, especially Search and YouTube, with additional businesses including Google Cloud, Android, Chrome, and hardware. Alphabet is the parent company's stock-market name; Google is the operating company most people use every day.