Alphabet owns Google and became the company’s parent after a 2015 corporate restructuring.
Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced Alphabet in August 2015. The new structure placed Google’s core businesses, including search, advertising, Android, and YouTube, inside a larger holding company. Page became Alphabet’s chief executive, while Sundar Pichai became Google’s CEO.
Alphabet is regularly included among the world’s most valuable companies by market capitalization because of Google’s dominant online-search and digital-advertising businesses. Other activities, such as cloud computing and hardware, also contribute to its corporate profile.
A frequent mistake is treating Alphabet and Google as identical legal entities. Google is Alphabet’s largest subsidiary, while Alphabet is the publicly traded parent company whose shares investors buy.