Alphabet is the parent corporation of Google and began trading under the ticker GOOG in 2015.
Google’s founders created Alphabet as a new holding company in 2015 to separate Google’s core internet products from other ventures. Alphabet became the publicly traded parent, while Google became its largest subsidiary.
The restructuring placed products such as Search, YouTube, Android, and Google Cloud within Google, while other projects could operate more independently. Alphabet’s name was chosen partly because “alphabet” represents language and information, central themes of Google’s business.
Alphabet has two major publicly traded share classes commonly identified by the tickers GOOG and GOOGL. GOOG shares generally lack voting rights, while GOOGL shares carry voting rights. The company is a frequent member of the world’s highest-market-capitalization rankings because of its advertising, cloud, software, and platform businesses.