Alphabet Inc. is the parent organization of Google and adopted its corporate name in 2015.
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced the Alphabet restructuring in August 2015, and it became effective in October of that year. Google remained the main operating company, while Alphabet became the holding company for Google and several other businesses and projects.
The restructuring separated Google’s core internet products from activities such as life sciences and other experimental ventures. Sundar Pichai became Google’s chief executive in 2015, while Larry Page became Alphabet’s chief executive and Sergey Brin became its president.
Alphabet is often incorrectly called Google in corporate contexts, because Google remains its best-known subsidiary. Alphabet’s publicly traded shares represent ownership in the parent company, not a separately listed stock for Google’s search engine. Its businesses include search, YouTube, Android, and Google Cloud.