Alphabet became the fourth U.S. company to exceed a $1 trillion market capitalization.
Alphabet crossed the threshold in January 2020, joining Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft in the trillion-dollar group. Alphabet is the parent company created in 2015 to oversee Google and several other businesses.
Google remains Alphabet's largest and best-known operation, with products including Search, YouTube, Android, and Google Cloud. Alphabet also houses so-called “Other Bets,” which have included ventures such as Waymo and research projects associated with advanced technology.
The milestone is sometimes confused with Google's corporate history. Google itself was founded in 1998, while Alphabet became the publicly traded parent after a 2015 restructuring. Market-cap rankings are not permanent: Alphabet can move above or below other companies as stock prices change. The trillion-dollar figure therefore describes a market value at a particular point in time, not a fixed measurement of the company's physical assets.