Alphabet owns Google and became one of the world's largest companies by market capitalization after its 2015 restructuring.
Alphabet Inc. was created in 2015 as the parent company of Google and several other businesses. Google became a subsidiary, while Alphabet’s corporate structure separated the core internet business from experimental or newer ventures such as Waymo and Verily.
The restructuring did not mean that Google disappeared or that Alphabet became a separate replacement product for consumers. Google Search, YouTube, Android, and Google Cloud remained central operations, but their financial reporting was organized under Alphabet’s parent-company structure.
Alphabet’s market capitalization is based on the combined value investors assign to its publicly traded shares. It is commonly confused with Google’s own historical corporate identity because Google remains the best-known consumer brand. Alphabet’s shares trade under the symbols GOOGL and GOOG, representing different voting rights.