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Google Is Restructuring Under a New Company Called Alphabet

Posted by samzenpus on from the what's-in-a-name? dept.

Mark Wilson writes: Sundar Pichai is the new CEO of Google as the company undergoes a huge restructuring. Co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are moving to a new company called Google Alphabet which will serve as an umbrella company for Google and its various projects. Google itself is being, in Page's words, "slimmed down" and the change is quite an extraordinary one. Page quotes the original founders' letter that was written 11 years go. It states that "Google is not a conventional company", and today's announcement makes that perfectly clear. There's a lot to take in...Google Alphabet is, essentially, the new face of Google. Page chose to make the announcement in a blog post that went live after the stock markets closed. This is more than just a rebranding, it is a complete shakeup, the scale of which is almost unprecedented.

4 of 235 comments (clear)

  1. Seems like stockholders... by garyisabusyguy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    may have been getting a little impatient with the many directions that Google was going in.

    This allows Google to focus on making money from advertisements, while Alphabet can makes bets on many different products

    At least that is my take on it

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    Wherever You Go, There You Are
  2. "Unconventional" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Google is not a conventional company. It'll rob you in ways you've never imagine before, and will continue to rob you as it morph itself in ways you cannot even begin to imagine.

  3. A promotion for Sundar Pichai, not much else by dzoey · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Before the announcement, Google was composed of many divisions (e.g. YoutTube, Calico etc.) each reporting to a person that reported to the Google CEO, except for Google itself. After the announcement, Alphabet is composed of many companies (Google, YouTube, Calico, etc) each with a CEO that reports to the Alphabet CEO who used to be the Google CEO. It creates a position at the top for a Google CEO that will be filled by Sundar Pichai, who clearly deserves the recognition. But, it doesn't look like much else changes. It's the same people doing the same work.

    The rumor on the Google blog is that Twitter was looking to offer Sundar Pichai a CEO position, so this move was made to keep him.

    Perhaps there are some additional legal protections gained by doing this reorg as well.

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    -- Everything is wonderful until you know something about it.
  4. Re:Courts by Dahamma · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Except that the "Google" division - which contains search, apps, Android, and ads - is still nearly all of their revenue.

    Based on the divisions they spun off - Life Sciences, Calico (longevity project), Google X, Google Ventures - it seems like it's more of an effort to separate out the big profit center from the longer term projects that aren't directly generating revenue (ie. short term shareholder value).

    It's going to let them invest in these really interesting long term projects without shareholders bitching about the risk. Which is awesome, and really does show they are running the company differently than the usual tech behemoths. Just think if HP, IBM, Microsoft, etc had done this *properly* at their peaks (vs spinning off valuable businesses as entirely separate companies like HP did, or repeatedly shuffling the deck chairs like Microsoft keeps dong) - they might still be relevant.