FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

News

A Company Called Alphabet Now Owns Google

The move will essentially separate Google’s web companies that generate the bulk of its revenue— YouTube and its eponymous search engine — from its less profitable and more speculative endeavors.
Photo par Boris Roessler/EPA

Google, the company so ubiquitous it's become a verb, announced on Monday that it will be changing its name. From now on, Google will be known as Alphabet.

"Our company is operating well today, but we think we can make it cleaner and more accountable. So we are creating a new company, called Alphabet," CEO Larry Page announced in a blog post Monday.

"What is Alphabet? Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google," he explained.

Advertisement

The move will essentially separate Google's web companies that generate the bulk of its revenue— YouTube and its eponymous search engine — from its research divisions like the health products Calico and Life Sciences.

"Alphabet will also include our X lab, which incubates new efforts like Wing, our drone delivery effort. We are also stoked about growing our investment arms, Ventures and Capital, as part of this new structure," Page explained.

According to Page, Google made the decision to clearly differentiate between the business's different facts.

"Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren't very related," he wrote.

Going forward, Sundar Pichai — formerly the senior vice president in charge of productive — will be Google's chief executive, in charge of the search engine.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin will run Alphabet alongside Page.

"For Sergey and me this is a very exciting new chapter in the life of Google" Page wrote. "We liked the name Alphabet because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity's most important innovations, and is the core of how we index with Google search."

The move is designed to shake up the company, which operates the world's most popular search and engine and video-sharing services.

"We've long believed that over time companies tend to get comfortable doing the same thing, just making incremental changes," Page wrote. "But in the technology industry, where revolutionary ideas drive the next big growth areas, you need to be a bit uncomfortable to stay relevant."

Initially the stock market responded favorable the announcement. Google shares rose as much as 6.2 percent in extended trading after Page's post was published Monday.