Google becomes Alphabet causing surprise among employees

It was announced yesterday that the tech giant will be rebranding itself as Alphabet, a holding company whose largest subsidiary will be Google. Alphabet will act as a parent company to Google, and all of their various offspring. Google Co-Founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, announced that Sundar Pichai would take over as CEO of Google, under Alphabet.

Page explained the move, claiming: “As Sergey and I wrote in the original founders letter 11 years ago, ‘Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one’.

“As part of that, we also said that you could expect us to make ‘smaller bets in areas that might seem very speculative or even strange when compared to our current businesses’. From the start, we’ve always strived to do more, and to do important and meaningful things with the resources we have.”

However, the decision came as a shock to employees at Google HQ, with many staff taking to internet forums to express their confusions. Thomas Wong, Associate Account Strategist at Google, wrote: “I don't think anyone at Google can say there was a universal single residual feeling. Because as everyone in this thread has described, it took us all by surprise.”