In a surprise move by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google is now a subsidiary of a newly formed holding company called Alphabet. At first glance, this may seem like a belated April Fool’s joke. But we can assure you that it is not.
Under Alphabet, Google is now considered a search and ads company with control over Youtube, Android, Search, Ads, Maps, and Apps. Treated as separate companies under Alphabet are Nest, Fiber, Google X, Google Ventures, Life Sciences, and Calico. Replacing Larry Page as the CEO of Google will be long-time Google employee Sundar Pinchai, who has effectively been running Google and its core product offerings since October 2014.
So what does this mean for the Google we know and love? Effectively, it means Google can continue to focus on what it does best: creating a great search experience. After all, in Google’s document “Ten things we know to be true,” it said companies should “do one thing really, really well.” According to Google, that one thing was search. Of course, over the past fifteen years, search as Google’s core focus has been put into question. Google’s domain has expanded into a number of other product offerings — some of which are peripherally related to search, others of which are not.
As for the rest of the Alphabet, each new subsidiary will have their own CEO and maintain autonomy from Larry Page and Sergey Brin. This will give Alphabet’s subisidaries, such as Nest, a chance to breath on their own, without the results of Google’s core business weighing them down. Alphabet will also be able to invest in other moonshot ideas without having to justify how they will impact Google’s bottom line.
While it is too early to tell how exactly Alphabet will impact Google, nothing should change in the short-term. Google is still very much a far-reaching and innovative technology company. And it is by far the most important and largest subsidiary of Larry Page’s new Alphabet.
A LIST OF ALPHABET SUBSIDIARIES
- Google. Ran by Sundar Pinchai, Google will run search, ads, Android, and apps.
- Nest Labs. Ran by Tony Fadell, Nest Labs make smart home products such as the Nest thermostat, security camera, and smoke alarm.
- Google Fiber. Google Fiber offers affordable one gigabit Internet speeds in select cities around the country.
- Google X. Astro Teller manages the day-to-day activities of X, which is responsible for the introduction of Google’s driverless cars, Internet ballons, and other “moonshots.”
- Calico. Art Levinson is Calico’s CEO. It is an independent research and development biotech company, which focuses on curing age-related illnesses.
- Life Sciences. Formerly a division of Google X, Life Sciences is a research organization that has worked on Google Contact Lens and the Liftware Spoon.
