Alphabet owns Google, the search-engine business that helped make it one of the world’s largest companies by market capitalization.
Alphabet was created in 2015 as a holding company and corporate restructuring of Google. Google became a subsidiary, while other businesses and projects were grouped under Alphabet’s broader structure. Sundar Pichai became Alphabet’s chief executive in 2019 after previously leading Google.
Google’s advertising business has historically supplied most of Alphabet’s revenue, especially through search and online video. The company also operates products such as YouTube, Android, Google Maps, and Google Cloud.
Alphabet’s market capitalization reflects investor expectations for its entire collection of businesses, not only the Google search page. This is why company rankings can be misunderstood when a famous product is treated as though it were the listed company itself.