Earlier this morning, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced Alphabet, a new parent company aimed at restructuring Google as well as its subsidiaries.
While corporate restructuring might be dry news, Alphabet is significant in the sense that the company now owns Google and formerly Google-owned projects, including the likes of Calico, Nest, and Fiber. This will allow Alphabet to appoint new CEOs to each business which can be run independently of one another.
Alphabet doesn’t spell the end for the world’s most popular search engine – rather, the development will see the company more easily managed as an umbrella portfolio. Sundar Pichai, Google’s former Senior Vice President of Products and the man at the helm of Google IO 2015, will step forward as the business’ new CEO.
Google as a company itself will retain its Search, Android, Chrome, YouTube, and Google Maps subsidiaries, while other projects and divisions will see equal attention.
Calico, – the company charged with finding new ways to extend the human lifespan – will, for example, now receive the same attention by Larry Page and Sergey Brin as Google will under the Alphabet umbrella. Similarly, Fiber and Nest Labs – initiatives aimed at developing super-fast and affordable internet and smart home technology respectively – will be managed separately under Alphabet.
This also means that Google’s former investment arms – Google X, where the company’s more secretive projects such as a self driving car are being developed, will move to Alphabet as well, in addition to Google Ventures and Google Capital. This will allow Alphabet to invest an a far more diversified portfolio.
Ultimately, the restructuring move should see far more attention reach many of Google’s former projects and divisions, as well as a clearer cut defintion of which elements of Alphabet’s new subsidiaries will interact with one-another. As per the name change, Larry Page concluded his first letter as CEO of Alphabet sharing the same sentiment as many others: “Don’t worry, we’re still getting used to the name too!”
