When Google rebranded to Alphabet on October 1, 2015, it was to make the sprawling array of Google-related ventures “cleaner and more accountable,” according to founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
The launch of the new holding company aimed to restructure the organisation and distinguish between distinct areas of the business – partly for investors, but also for customers.
“As Sergey and I wrote in the original founders’ letter 11 years ago, ‘Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one’,” Page wrote in a blog post at the time.
“As part of that, we also said that you could expect us to make ‘smaller bets in areas that might seem very speculative or even strange when compared to our current businesses.’ From the start, we’ve always strived to do more, and to do important and meaningful things with the resources we have,” he added.
Why Alphabet?
So why ‘Alphabet’ of all names? According to Page, the name was chosen because it represented a “collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity’s most important innovations, and is at the core of how the index with Google Search”.
By this point, Google itself had indeed become a “collection” of companies operating under one umbrella – but it was less an alphabet and more of a cacophony of disparate enterprises.
From its search and advertising business to YouTube or ventures like Waymo and DeepMind, it was becoming difficult to pin down exactly what the company did.
Moreover, it’s grown since the rebranding, bringing on cybersecurity firm Mandiant and data analytics startup, Looker.
Ultimately, the rebrand enabled “more management scale,” Page noted back in 2015. In pursuing this approach, each individual cog in the expanding machine would remain well-oiled and maintained.
At the time of the rebrand, Alphabet was to be run by Page, Brin, and CFO Ruth Porat. Google, which included the search, YouTube, Chrome, and Android segments, was run by Sundar Pichai. Every other subsidiary also had its own chief executive.
In 2019, Pichai took the helm at Alphabet in addition to his role as chief executive at Google.
A changing tech landscape
Looking back, the rebrand not only shocked Silicon Valley, but also pointed toward the changing face of the global technology landscape. Google had its finger in an array of pies by this point, much like industry counterparts such as Microsoft.
It really wasn’t just Google anymore, and it was a move that certainly appears to have paid dividends. In the year prior to rebranding, the company was valued at $445 billion, with earnings reports showing it boasted revenues of $66 billion.
By September 2025, Alphabet had reached even loftier heights, joining the likes of Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia with a valuation of over $3 trillion.
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