Alphabet is the parent company that owns Google and was created in 2015 through a corporate restructuring.
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced Alphabet in August 2015. The new structure separated Google’s core internet businesses from other ventures, including research and development projects. Alphabet became the publicly traded parent company, while Google operated as its largest subsidiary.
This arrangement allowed investors to see more clearly how the search, advertising, cloud, hardware, and experimental businesses fit together. Google’s search engine and advertising operations remained the central source of Alphabet’s revenue.
Alphabet is often listed among the world’s largest companies by market capitalization. A common mistake is to treat Alphabet and Google as interchangeable names: Google is the operating company most people use, while Alphabet is the wider corporate group.