Google Restructuring as Alphabet, as Easy as ABC.XYZ

Google has never been a conventional company. And on Monday, they proved this once again with a massive restructuring of their businesses. And perhaps the most surprising part of this is that Google itself will NOT be the parent company at the top of the hierarchy. No, this will be a whole new entity called Alphabet (with the simple but clever URL abc.xyz). And Google will be a smaller subsidiary of Alphabet!

Why they are doing this made a surprising amount of sense once it had been explained. See, Google, as a whole, has made it a mission to improve the world. They have a business called Calico that is trying to combat death (one of our nations most lethal killers, as it turns out). They are working on self-driving cars as many may be aware, with a project known as Google X. They’re working on a drone delivery system with a company called Wing. And they have their corporate hands dipped into many other ambitious pots.

All of these companies, and many new ones they’re inevitably going to be launching, will fall under the banner of Alphabet. Google will, after this is done, be “an Alphabet company.” Google’s CEO Larry Page and President Sergey Brin will carry over those titles and responsibilities to Alphabet, while Sundar Pichai (who has been running it operationally since October) is now the CEO of Google (you know, the company Alphabet will own). Page and Brin will continue to oversee the various Alphabet subsidiaries, but no longer be so involved with the nitty gritty of Google’s operations.

Google, both as we knew it and will come to know it, has been a visionary company and redefined the concepts of search, advertising, and information storage. Now they’ve embraced their more far-reaching aspirations and given that ambition a new name: Alphabet. Some things, however, will not change. For example, if you want to learn more of the specifics about this change, you could always Google it.