Not too long ago Google made a major announcement – they were changing their name to Alphabet (or at least the parent company), and today that change went live. Starting Monday Google will no longer trade on the NASDAQ, Alphabet Inc. will. Don’t believe me? Here are the SEC filings. Starting Monday if you owned Google stock, you now own Alphabet stock.
I’ve heard some confusion around what Alphabet is and while it may seem like a strange move it actually makes a lot of sense. Google started as a search engine, then they became a search engine with a robust and compelling ad platform, fast-forward to 2015 and they do a while lot more than that. Google has an investment arm called Google Ventures, a Life Sciences group, a group focused on building self-driving cars, Google Fiber, and the list goes on, these will soon all roll up under Alphabet.
Alphabet will be the parent company to all of these entities and Google, as we will know it, will be a company that continues to power and build-out search, You Tube, advertising, Chrome, Android and all the other things we know and love Google for.
It’s an incredible transformation and I think a good move to recognize that Google has become much more than Google, it has become an ecosystem of companies, all relatively autonomous while still being deeply connected in some ways. While it may seem like more of a branding move than anything I think this will allow Google to make some of the different groups feel a lot more like companies, each with their own mission and vision, and it’s little changes like this that over the long run can make a big difference, and let’s be honest, who would know more about that than Google Alphabet.
