Alphabet is the company that owns Google and was created in 2015 as part of a corporate restructuring.
Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced Alphabet in August 2015. The new parent company separated Google’s core internet businesses from several other projects, including research and investment ventures.
Google remained Alphabet’s largest operating company, covering products such as Search, YouTube, Android, and Google Cloud. Sundar Pichai became Google’s chief executive in 2015 and later became Alphabet’s CEO in 2019.
A common mix-up is treating Alphabet and Google as identical corporate entities. Google is a subsidiary, while Alphabet is the publicly traded parent whose market capitalization is commonly reported in global company rankings.