Google changed its corporate structure in 2015 when Alphabet Inc. became its parent company.
The restructuring was announced in August 2015 and completed later that year. Google remained the name of the company’s main internet businesses, including Search, YouTube, and Android, while Alphabet became the holding company for Google and several other ventures.
The change separated the core advertising and internet operations from businesses such as life sciences, research, and other experimental projects. Sundar Pichai became Google’s chief executive, while Larry Page became Alphabet’s chief executive and Sergey Brin became its president.
Google and Alphabet are sometimes treated as interchangeable in everyday conversation, but they are not identical corporate entities after the restructuring. Alphabet is the publicly traded parent company, and Google is its largest operating subsidiary. Alphabet’s shares trade under the symbols GOOGL and GOOG, with different voting rights attached to the two principal classes.