“Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.”
- Larry Page & Sergey Brin
About Alphabet and Google
Founded in 1996 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google is unconventional to say the least having changed the way we view “search”. Google has become synonymous with ‘search’ and much more. Having changed the way we look at a company with its constant focus on innovation through its “other bets”, Google was re-organized into a conglomerate as a leading subsidiary of the umbrella company, Alphabet on October 2nd 2015. As a part of the re-organization, Google stock ticker symbols ‘GOOG’ and ‘GOOGL’ was changed to Alphabet’s stock.
Google and Alphabet as its parent is an Information technology company having democratized information making it available to everyone through its search engine.
Business Model
With the re-organization of Alphabet as a parent company of Google and creating a separate subsidiary for its “other bets’, Alphabet has given a clear indication to focus on revolutionary innovation.
Alphabet reports its business results under two buckets
- Google and
- All other businesses under ‘Other Bets’
Google has created a platform for connecting people through sharing and dissemination of information through its various platforms such as the Android ecosystem, its search engine, Chrome browsers and its YouTube platform.
Apart from focusing on its core business expanding on “Google search” and covering its Android ecosystem and Chrome, Google continues to invest on ‘Moonshots’ as it called it which were seeds of business which Google saw as opportunities from a long term perspective. This is an important facet that differentiates the company. Some of these moonshots has been re-organized into ‘Other Bets’ while the majority continues to function under Google.
Google has become synonymous with “Search” with a massive brand following. When people search for information on the Internet, they ask to “google it”.
Advertising through Internet and mobile ecosystem is the primary source of revenue for Google. This is integrated through its products such as
- Maps
- Google Play
- Gmail
- Search
- Chrome
- Android
- YouTube
Innovation is a key to success at Alphabet and its subsidiaries. Alphabet’s other bets are early stage businesses with future potential that the company sees potential in. Google in turn release several early stage products driven by trends and growth prospects in the long term. Some of these might seem spec
ulative in nature, but it’s an essential element of how Alphabet sees its business model.
Technology being an industry with constant change and fast innovation, Alphabet sees it imperative to drive innovation through these initiatives, which is a differentiator, which could be speculative in some cases.
Alphabet and Google are driven by innovation and as a result have a major
portion of its expenditure focused on innovation. R&D forms 38% if its total workforce and is a major driver for growth.