Google Will Never Be the Same After What Just Happened

In a major move by Google, the company's cofounders announced that Google is now part of a larger company called Alphabet. The company Alphabet is "a collection of companies," with Google being one of them. Larry Page will serve as CEO of Alphabet, with Sergey Brin fulfilling the role of president. Over at Google, Sundar Pichai, who was senior vice president of products, will now take over as CEO of the company.

Additionally, Google is no longer a publicly traded company. Instead, all shares of Google "will automatically convert into the same number of shares of Alphabet, with all of the same rights." However, those shares will still trade as GOOGL and GOOG on NASDAQ.

While the change is certainly huge, it makes sense for Google to take this direction. The move separates the successful core business from Google's more experimental projects. One such project is Calico, a company dedicated to finding an end to death. Another is Wing, "a drone delivery effort." And who can forget the fledgling Google Glass or Google Plus efforts? These ventures don't necessarily tie into Google's successful search and advertising products.

It'll be interesting to see what happens at Google — it's definitely a new chapter, although some people are confused by it (see below.) There's even a new URL: https://abc.xyz.