One year ago, Larry Page and Sergei Brin took to their blogs to announce a dramatic shake-up of their brainchild, Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL). The company--whose rapid expansion in internet services has propelled it to a value of almost $500 billion--was going to be, in the words of Mr. Page, "a bit slimmed down." A reorganization of its inner/outer structure had been undertaken.
Today, the main activities of the core company include running internet-centric areas of the business, such as Google Maps, YouTube, Chrome, and Android. However many different businesses operate in tandem with Google on different but no less important projects. All these companies are directed underneath an umbrella corporation called Alphabet, as intended by Mr. Page and Mr. Brin. Regarding management, Mr. Page serves as CEO of Alphabet, Mr. Brin as President. (Sundar Pichai assumed the role of Google's CEO from the company's founders last year from his previous post.) The announcement was startling.
Alphabet has provided the company's founders a fresh larger platform from which to manage their massive businesses. Together, the two industry titans oversee a greater amount of projects than those solely confined to their most famous creation. They have come, over the years, to see themselves as powerful advisors to merited executives (like Mr. Pichai) rather than morphing into micro-managing captains. As Fortune Magazine put it, "Sundar Pichai will be able to lead, and Larry Page will be able to dream."
So how's the dreaming coming along? The change was driven by the desire to compartmentalize the functions of each sub-section of Google's densely intermingled businesses. Streamlined efficiency was the primary goal. Other companies underneath the Alphabet umbrella are Google X (an incubator of sorts that leads, among others, Google's vision of self-driving cars) and Venture and Capital (that handles the financial matters of the company). The benefit of Alphabet's leadership is that projects are clearly organized amongst its various entities. By shearing the fluff of periphery projects off their golden lamb, Google, Mr. Page and Mr. Brin have clarified the company's specific and lasting appeal while not sacrificing its ever-rising value.
Google has become practically synonymous with the internet. It has even coined a verb in our lexicon. 'To Google something' is as natural as eating a sandwich or driving a car nowadays. The corporation--much like Apple--is one of Silicon Valley's poster board stories and the mythos it has acquired lends gravitas to its actions, improvements, and yes, its biggest changes.
On Alphabet's main website, Google still occupies center-stage. Alphabet reports or at least plans to report Google's earnings separately from other subsidiaries. Until Alphabet assumes its place in the stock market, Google still remains the publicly traded company. Even then it will retain its symbol afterward. Its image will not be clouded. "Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one," are the words its founders wrote eleven years ago and words to which it still holds true, whatever shake-ups occur or have occurred.
A more subtle change that reflects the attitude of this tech conglomerate: the famous motto of Google, "Don't be evil" was replaced by Alphabet's positive phrase, "Do the right thing."