Alphabet is the parent company that owns Google and was created during a 2015 corporate restructuring.
Google announced Alphabet in August 2015, and the new holding company became the publicly traded parent later that year. Google remained the main operating company, while Alphabet also housed businesses and projects outside Google’s core internet products.
The restructuring separated Google’s advertising, search, YouTube, and Android operations from ventures such as Waymo and other “moonshot” projects. Alphabet’s market value therefore reflects the performance of Google as well as the potential of its wider collection of businesses.
The company is frequently confused with Google because Google is still the consumer-facing brand most people encounter. Alphabet, however, is the legal public corporation whose shares trade under the ticker symbols GOOG and GOOGL.