What Is Alphabet?

October 5th, 2015 | by Kevin James Krotz

This week, Google changed. To most people, the change didn’t even pop up on their radar. Even to those that did notice the change, it doesn’t matter much. Google has restructured themselves into Alphabet.

What Is Alphabet?

Alphabet is a new company, created by those that run Google to run Google and it’s many projects. Alphabet a collection of companies, run by CEO Larry Page and President Sergey Brin (the guys best known for creating and running Google). The company will be running Google and the projects that were previously under the Google umbrella.

Okay, sounds good. Is anything happening to Google?

No and yes! Google isn’t going away (of course), but it’s “slimming down” as Larry Page said in an Alphabet blog post. Google will focus on search and ads, which is where a lot of the money is. Projects that are deemed to be “far afield” from the company’s main internet products will be moving over to Alphabet.

Calico, which works on health longevity, and Life Sciences, which works on the glucose-sensing contact lens, are two examples of projects that Alphabet will be managing. Mainly, this move is to bring more management to projects that aren’t quite connected with Google’s main internet product or with each other.

So, why does this matter to me?

Well, right now it doesn’t. And the actual grand business restructuring that took place behind the scenes doesn’t either. What really matters in all this is that we’ll probably see products being developed at a faster and more focused-pace than before.

Previously, there were a lot of products under the Google umbrella, but with these products now being able to be managed less like projects and more like full-grown companies, we’ll see what is being developed come to fruition much faster than we could’ve hoped for. It won’t be immediately apparent what this restructuring will bring to our culture and society, but it will eventually.

So, right now Alphabet doesn’t really matter to anyone who just wants to search for something on Google or check their email in Gmail, but for those that are giving even a smidgen of observation to things like Space X, Calico, Nest, or Fiber, this new company will be something that they should pay attention to.

Originally published at thedailyengage.com on October 5, 2015.