Alphabet is the parent company that owns Google and is commonly ranked among the world’s most valuable companies.
Google became a subsidiary of Alphabet in October 2015, when the founders reorganized the business into a holding-company structure. Alphabet’s largest operation remains Google, whose products include Search, YouTube, Android, and Google Cloud.
The restructuring separated Google’s core internet businesses from other projects and subsidiaries. Alphabet’s “Other Bets” have included ventures such as Waymo and Verily, although their activities and ownership structures can change over time.
Alphabet’s market capitalization is based primarily on the value investors assign to its publicly traded shares. That value reflects expectations about advertising, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, hardware, and other businesses. Google and Alphabet are therefore related but not interchangeable answers: Google is the operating brand and subsidiary, while Alphabet is the publicly traded parent company.