Alphabet owns the Google search engine and has the ticker symbol GOOGL.
Alphabet Inc. became Google’s parent company in 2015, when Google reorganized its corporate structure. The new arrangement placed the core Google businesses, including Search, YouTube, and Android, under Alphabet while allowing other ventures to operate as separate units.
Alphabet is one of the world’s largest companies by market capitalization because Google’s advertising, cloud, and platform businesses generate substantial revenue. Its Class A shares trade under GOOGL and carry one vote per share; Class C shares trade under GOOG and have no voting rights. That distinction is a common source of confusion.
Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who developed a search engine while they were students at Stanford University. Alphabet’s market value reflects investor expectations for the wider group, not just the search website itself.