Alphabet owns Google and became one of the world’s most valuable companies after creating a parent structure in 2015.
Google announced the Alphabet reorganization in August 2015, with the new holding company becoming effective later that year. Google remained the core business, while separate units such as Waymo and Verily could operate with greater independence.
The restructuring did not replace Google’s products with a different search engine. Google Search, YouTube, Android, and Google Cloud remained central operations under the Google subsidiary. Alphabet’s market capitalization is the combined stock-market value investors assign to the parent company.
Larry Page became Alphabet’s first chief executive, while Sundar Pichai became Google’s CEO. In December 2019, Pichai also became Alphabet’s CEO, succeeding Page.