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Alphabet Inc.

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Alphabet Inc.
Company typeProposed conglomerate and public holding company[1]
Industry
Founders
Headquarters
United States
Key people
Revenue307,394,000,000 United States dollar (2023) Edit this on Wikidata
84,293,000,000 United States dollar (2023) Edit this on Wikidata
73,795,000,000 United States dollar (2023) Edit this on Wikidata
Total assets365,264,000,000 United States dollar (2022) Edit this on Wikidata
Number of employees
190,234 (2022) Edit this on Wikidata
Subsidiaries
Websiteabc.xyz

Alphabet Inc. is a holding company that is intended to become a conglomerate which will directly own several companies that were owned by or tied to Google, including Google itself. The company will be based in California and be headed by Google's co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, with Page serving as CEO while Brin serves as President.[2] Alphabet's portfolio will spread through a wide spectrum of industries including technology, the life sciences, investment capital, and research. Some of its subsidiaries will include Google Inc., Calico, Google Ventures, Google Capital, Google X, and Nest Labs. Sundar Pichai was named as the future CEO of Google, a position he will assume once the restructuring process is completed, whereupon Larry Page will become CEO of parent company Alphabet. Once the restructuring is complete, the new parent company will continue to trade under Google's existing ticker symbols "GOOG" and "GOOGL".[3][4]

History

On August 10, 2015, Google Inc. announced plans to create a new public holding company, Alphabet Inc. Google CEO Larry Page made this announcement in a blog post on Google's official blog.[4] Alphabet will be created to restructure Google by moving subsidiaries from Google to Alphabet, narrowing Google's scope. The company will consist of Google Inc., Nest Labs and Calico, as well as other businesses including Google X, Google Capital and Google Ventures.[2][5][6] Sundar Pichai, current Product Chief, is to become the new CEO of Google, replacing Larry Page.[7][8]

Announcement

In his announcement, Larry Page described the planned holding company:[4]

What is Alphabet? Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google. This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main internet products contained in Alphabet instead. [...] Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren’t very related. Pichai was announced as the CEO of Google on August 10, 2015

Page also explained the origin of the company name:

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! We also like that it means alpha‑bet (Alpha is investment return above benchmark), which we strive for!

Structure

Proposed Alphabet Inc. company structure

Alphabet's largest subsidiary will be Google Inc., but Alphabet will also be the parent company to Calico, Google Ventures, Google Capital, Google X, and Nest Labs. While many companies or divisions formerly a part of Google will become subsidiaries of Alphabet, many of the most iconic products and services associated with Google, such as the Android mobile operating system, YouTube, and Google Search, will remain direct components of Google Inc. and will not be made subsidiaries of Alphabet.[2]

Process

To start the restructuring process, Alphabet will be created as a subsidiary directly owned by Google. The roles of these two companies – one as the owner and the other as the subsidiary – will then be reversed in a two-step switch. First, a dummy subsidiary of Alphabet will be created. Then Google will merge with that dummy subsidiary while converting Google stock to Alphabet stock. The subsidiary after the merge, no longer a dummy, will be named "Google, Inc.". Alphabet stock will continue to trade under the symbols "GOOG" and "GOOGL". Under Delaware law, a holding company reorganization such as this can be done without a vote of shareholders, as this reorganization will be.[9]

.xyz domain

Though Google is now owned by Alphabet, it doesn’t own the domain “Alphabet.com” which is owned by another company that also has the same name “Alphabet”, a fleet management division of BMW; BMW has said that it is "necessary to examine the legal trademark implications" of the proposals.[10] Instead, it has a .xyz top-level domain.[11][12] The .xyz TLD was released in 2014, and HBO subsequently created the site hooli.xyz for the parody tech company in the comedy series Silicon Valley. Alphabet's website, abc.xyz, uses the same top-level domain. The announcement on August 10, 2015, on Google's blog included a hyperlink to the Hooli site hidden as an easter egg (behind a single period).[13]

References

  1. ^ "Google Rebrands As Alphabet". Forbes. Retrieved August 11, 2015.
  2. ^ a b c Womack, Brian (August 10, 2015). "Google Creates New Company Called Alphabet, Restructures Stock". Bloomberg. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
  3. ^ "Google to be part of new holding company, 'Alphabet'". Retrieved August 11, 2015.
  4. ^ a b c Page, Larry. "G is for Google". Google Official Blog. Retrieved August 11, 2015.
  5. ^ Greenberg, Julia (August 10, 2015). "What Google, I Mean Alphabet, Looks Like Now". Wired. Condé Nast. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
  6. ^ "What is Alphabet, Google's new company?". Business Insider. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
  7. ^ Chen, Angela (August 10, 2015). "Google Creates Parent Company Called Alphabet in Restructuring". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
  8. ^ Conor Dougherty (10 August 2015), Google to Reorganize in Move to Keep Its Lead as an Innovator, New York Times, retrieved 10 August 2015
  9. ^ "Google Inc. filing with the SEC, Form 8-K". United States Securities and Exchange Commission. August 10, 2015. Retrieved August 11, 2015.
  10. ^ Davidson, Lauren. "Google unveils Alphabet... but that's already trademarked by BMW". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 12 August 2015. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |website= (help)
  11. ^ Sohail, Khan. "Google is Now "Alphabet" but it Doesn't Own "Alphabet.com"". Pakistan Career Counsel. Sohail Imran Khan. Retrieved 11 August 2015.
  12. ^ Lardinois, Frederic (10 August 2015). "Google Is Now Alphabet, But It Doesn't Own Alphabet.com". TechCrunch. AOL Inc. Retrieved 11 August 2015.
  13. ^ Stephen Pulvirent (11 August 2015), "Here's the hidden joke in Google's letter announcing Alphabet", Sunday Morning Herald, retrieved 10 August 2015
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