Google is about to change forever after its long-awaited restructuring into a holding company called Alphabet Inc, a move that will give the Internet giant more room to experiment outside of search and advertising.
The Internet giant announced Friday that it expects to transition its stock from "Google Inc" to "Alphabet" at the end of the business day, marking the official start of the next era of Google as part of a larger holding company.
The company first announced in August that it would create a new parent company called Alphabet, a move that some took to be a joke at first. Under the arrangement, Google will be just one — albeit by far the largest — of a suite of independent businesses operating under the Alphabet umbrella.
Versions of this corporate reorganization had been discussed internally for at least four years, according to multiple Google insiders. The goal: to free Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page up from running the business day-to-day so he could brainstorm the next Google.
"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," Larry Page, Google's co-founder, wrote in an announcement at the time.
Page, previously the CEO of Google, forfeited that role to longtime executive Sundar Pichai and took over as CEO of Alphabet. Sources say it also affords more C-suite positions to hold on to top talent as well as a greater level of independence to grow (and spin off) new businesses and make room to acquire multi-billion dollar companies.
The Alphabet conglomerate currently includes Nest, the smart-home device maker it acquired; Google X, its so-called "moonshot" division; Google Ventures and Google Capital, its early and late-stage venture capital arms; Calico, its life extension venture; Life Sciences (self explanatory); and Sidewalk Labs, focused on improving urban life.
Google is reportedly planning to break out its robotics efforts into a separate division within Alphabet. On Wall Street, shares of Google will still trade with the tickers GOOG and GOOGL, following last year's stock split, but the corporate name will now be listed as Alphabet Class A Common Stock and Alphabet Class C Capital Stock.
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