Alphabet owns Google and was created as a new parent-company structure in 2015.
Google announced the corporate reorganization in August 2015, and Alphabet became the publicly traded parent company in October of that year. Google’s core internet businesses moved under Alphabet, while several other ventures became separate subsidiaries.
The structure allowed Google’s search, advertising, YouTube, Android, and cloud operations to remain together while experimental or specialized projects received greater independence. Google remained Alphabet’s largest and most important business.
Larry Page became Alphabet’s first chief executive, while Sergey Brin became its president. In December 2019, Sundar Pichai became Alphabet’s CEO as well as Google’s CEO. Alphabet is often listed among the world’s largest companies by market capitalization, but it is not the same legal entity as Google, which remains its principal subsidiary.