Everything to know about Google parent company Alphabet: What it does, who owns it, value, largest shareholders

• Alphabet Inc. was first created after a major restructuring at Google.
• Alphabet is now a parent company consisting of two segments: Google and Other Bets.
• Alphabet is a trillion-dollar company, and one of the biggest  in the US and the world.

Alphabet Inc. is a multinational tech conglomerate that was created in 2015 out of a massive restructuring of Google.

The goal of Google's restructuring, forming the parent company Alphabet, was to enable different businesses within the company to "operate independently and move faster."

Google co-founder Larry Page was Alphabet's first CEO, but Google CEO Sundar Pichai took over Alphabet in 2019. Pichai is one of the highest-paid executives in the world; he earned $226 million in 2022. 

Alphabet has been amping up its efforts to innovate in the artificial intelligence space and incorporate AI into its products — a key priority for its investors. Pichai has long touted Alphabet as an "AI-first company."

In 2023, Alphabet laid off about 12,000 employees, and Pichai said more Google layoffs would come in 2024.

What is the difference between Google and Alphabet?

Google is still Google, but its parent company is now called Alphabet Inc. and contains two main units: Google and Other Bets. Page has described Alphabet as "mostly a collection of companies."

The goal of creating Alphabet was to enable the company to invest in entrepreneurship, new products, and technology, and focus on taking a forward-looking approach.

Google remains the largest business within the Alphabet conglomerate, and includes Google Chrome, Google Pixel, Google Home, YouTube, search, Android, AdSense, Google Maps, and Google Play.

Other Bets encompasses entities such as the research and development unit Google X, Google Fiber, health research company Verily, the venture arm GV, and equity investment fund CapitalG.

Each company within Other Bets has its own CEO. 

How big is Alphabet?

Alphabet is one of the biggest tech companies in the world, and the third-largest company in the US, after Microsoft and Apple.

Like most major tech companies, Alphabet hired prodigiously throughout the pandemic and up to 2022, then slashed costs and implemented layoffs in 2023. By the end of 2023, Alphabet had about 182,500 employees in total.

Alphabet's net worth and ownership

Alphabet's annual revenue for 2023 was $307.39 billion, and its market cap was $1.87 trillion as of the end of March 2024.

Alphabet's main shareholders are Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Vanguard Group, and BlackRock Inc.