Alphabet owns Google and became one of the world’s most valuable firms under a 2015 holding-company structure.
Google reorganized in 2015, creating Alphabet as its parent company. The change separated Google’s core internet businesses from other ventures, including research and technology projects. Google remained Alphabet’s largest operating unit, with search advertising, YouTube, Android, and cloud services at its center.
The holding-company structure was designed to give businesses more independence while allowing investors to see how the core advertising operation supported longer-term projects. Alphabet’s market capitalization is therefore tied mainly to Google’s performance, but it also reflects expectations for cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and other initiatives.
A frequent error is calling the parent company Google after the reorganization. Google is the principal subsidiary; Alphabet is the publicly traded parent. Alphabet’s shares trade under the symbols GOOGL and GOOG, which have different voting rights but represent the same underlying company.