Google is to change its name to Alphabet,
alongside a major restructuring.
The company will continue to operate as
Google in most of the important ways,
including the search engine that made it one
of the world's biggest companies. But it will
operate a holding company named 'Alphabet',
Alphabet will include not just Google but the
company's huge array of other operations.
That includes it's life sciences operations,
for instance, which is working on a special
smart contact lens.
Splitting the company up and rearranging it
under a new name will allow each of those
different businesses to be run by different
bosses, the company said. It will also allow
it to report each of those businesses' results
separately.
The company also said that its reorganisation
would help it concentrate on its more
speculative, experimental work.
"Alphabet will also include our X lab, which
incubates new efforts like Wing, our drone
delivery effort," the company wrote in its
announcement. "We are also stoked about
growing our investment arms, Ventures and
Capital, as part of this new structure." Google
co-founder and CEO Larry Page Google co-
founder and CEO Larry Page
Sundar Pichai, who before ran most of
Google's most important products, will
become its CEO. (Pichai had been rumoured
to be in the running for the vacant position of
Twitter CEO.)
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.
