Alphabet is the company that changed its name from Google Inc. to Alphabet Inc. in 2015 and trades under GOOGL.
Alphabet was created as a holding company during a corporate reorganization announced in August 2015. Google became Alphabet's largest subsidiary, while other projects and businesses could operate more independently under the new structure.
The group includes Google Search, YouTube, and Google Cloud, as well as businesses such as Waymo and Verily. Alphabet has two widely known Nasdaq share classes: GOOGL shares have voting rights, while GOOG shares generally do not.
The name change did not rename the Google search engine. Google remained a subsidiary and product brand, while Alphabet became the parent corporation used in financial reporting and stock-market listings.