Alphabet Inc.

Alphabet is the parent holding company of Google, and related companies, including Verily Life Sciences, GV, Calico, and X. Established in October 2015, Alphabet was created through a restructuring of Google and its subsidiaries. Alphabet is a leader in digital ad revenue, largely due to Google and YouTube's success. The other business segments of Alphabet include products and services such as infrastructure and platform services through Google Cloud, collaboration tools, enterprise software services, and the Android operating system, Chrome browser and operating system, and related hardware.

The industries Alphabet spans are diverse, including robotics, life sciences, healthcare, and anti-aging. But the core, "safe" companies and industries remain under the Google umbrella, especially those services and products directly related to Google's main business. While Alphabet offers insulation for the main business from the more difficult, risky, and research-focused ventures. The restructuring also lessened the scrutiny the company endured under antitrust legislation in various regions.

Google's leadership announced the change to Alphabet as a new parent entity in order to better unite the company's widening interests and product lines, while also working to improve long-term views and transparency and oversight of the company's actions. Upon founding Alphabet, the name was chosen because the alphabet is a collection of letters that represent language, which Larry Page considered humanity's most important innovations and the core of how Google's search is indexed.

The use of Alphabet as a "safe space" is particularly important for Google. This comes as the company has variously attempted innovations that have reached beyond what is considered possible and, in some cases, fallen flat. These flops, often considered failures, have come under scrutiny from investors and the media. Therefore, through Alphabet, the company can continue these experiments and innovations while avoiding negative public relations or direct association with Google's main business, particularly the search engine business.