Alphabet Inc. is an American multinational technology conglomerate, headquartered in Mountain View, California, that was created on October 2, 2015, as the parent holding company of Google. The restructuring, announced by co-founder Larry Page, was designed to make the core Google business "cleaner and more accountable" while granting greater autonomy to other ventures like X Development, Calico, and Nest. In December 2019, founders Page and Sergey Brin stepped down from executive roles, handing the CEO position to Sundar Pichai, who also leads Google, while they retained control as board members and shareholders. As of July 2026, Alphabet is the third-largest publicly traded company in the world by market capitalization and a major Big Tech player. However, the company has faced significant legal and ethical controversies, including a 2017 lawsuit against Uber over stolen self-driving technology, multiple antitrust actions from the US, France, and Japan, a forced bankruptcy filing in Russia in 2022, and widespread criticism for mass layoffs of 12,000 employees in 2023.