Google Restructures Into New Holding Company Called Alphabet

Google announced a corporate restructuring on Monday, forming an umbrella company called Alphabet and naming a new CEO to the core business of Google. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will run Alphabet -- Page as CEO and Brin as president.
 
The company, which was founded in 1998 and went public in 2004, announced its new operating structure in a blog post on Monday called "G is for Google." They also said that Sundar Pichai is taking over as CEO of Google. Pichai has worked at Google since 2004, most recently as the senior vice president of product. Pichai has also been the most visible Google executive of late, giving the keynote at Google's annual developers conference earlier this year.
 
Alphabet will operate as the parent company for a number of smaller companies, including Google, which will continue to focus on Internet products. Android, YouTube, search and ads will remain part of Google Inc.
 
Larry Page wrote in a blog post that the company has "long believed that over time companies tend to get comfortable doing the same thing, just making incremental changes. "But in the technology industry, where revolutionary ideas drive the next big growth areas, you need to be a bit uncomfortable to stay relevant."

Referencing Google's 2004 commitment to not become a "conventional company", Page wrote that Google "is operating well today, but we think we can make it cleaner and more accountable. So we are creating a new company, called Alphabet. "I am really excited to be running Alphabet as CEO with help from my capable partner, Sergey, as President."

Google will continue to trade under its existing stock market symbols, GOOG and GOOGL. The company's shares were up over 5 per cent in after hours trading, following the post-close announcement. All of the existing Google shareholders will see their stock automatically changed to the new company, Alphabet

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