Google takes the lead in transforming itself into a company that no longer has an Internet presence

Google always does things that seem crazy, like creating a parent company for itself.

On the evening of August 10, U.S. time, Google announced that it would create a parent company called Alphabet Inc. Google CEO Page said in an official blog that Alphabet would replace Google as the new listed company, and all Google shares would be automatically converted into Alphabet shares of the same number and rights. Google will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alphabet.
After Google's reorganization, the new Alphabet will become an umbrella company. The so-called "umbrella company" refers to "a group of companies that are established with an investment and investment relationship, have independent legal status, and are interrelated", just like an open umbrella, with many participating companies under it. If it is not formed naturally, the creation of an umbrella company is often for special purposes, such as avoiding tax and legal obstacles in mergers and acquisitions.


But the creation of Alphabet is obviously not for short-term goals. On the contrary, Google's "mom-making action" looks more like part of a long-term plan, in which the Google myth of Internet companies will be ended and replaced by a "great company" called Alphabet. It does not have a special label like "Internet". It is just a big company, similar to Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, which manages a variety of companies, including Google.
Google founders Page and Sergey Brin will serve as CEO and president respectively in Alphabet, which shows that the control of the company has not been transferred with the establishment of the parent company, and the new Google will account for the vast majority of the old Google's $60 billion in revenue.
There is a lot of discussion about Google's approach. Generally speaking, there are three purposes. First, the founders Page and Sergey want to liberate themselves. The establishment of a parent company makes it easier to focus on the big picture and let go of the small things. Second, the creation of Alphabet allows various unrelated businesses under Google to operate independently without involving each other. In recent years, Google has made a lot of layouts outside of the Internet business, including robots, driverless cars, new energy, smart homes, medical and health industries, etc., including some high-risk exploratory businesses. It will be more worry-free to separate the core business from the more speculative business and operate the core business like a Fortune 500 company.
Google is already a large company with a market value of 430 billion US dollars, but its leader has "moon landing ambitions". Page said, "We must allocate the same amount of resources that ordinary companies use to develop products and spend them on things that have long-term impact and greater ambitions and are beyond the imagination of ordinary people, such as landing on the moon." But if these two images are combined into one, it looks more divided, making people feel that Google is not doing its job and it would be better to hand it over to an Alphabet subsidiary parallel to Google.
The third is the internal entrepreneurship theory, which states that arranging new businesses in parallel with core businesses is beneficial from the perspective of attracting external capital, retaining core employees, and preventing senior employees from leaving to start their own businesses.
All three of the above statements have their merits, but there is one question that cannot be answered, that is, if Google only wants to achieve the above-mentioned purpose, it is actually not necessary to create a parent company. The great companies in history have basically developed from a single company. As the business grows and diversifies, they are more likely to use split-off and merger methods to solve the problem. For example, Baidu, which is also a search engine company, proposed an "aircraft carrier plan" to split off some businesses in order to develop its O2O business.
In my opinion, the emergence of Alphabet actually represents the current trend of Internet toolization, that is, the de-internetization of Google. If the method of split expansion is adopted, Google will still be Google, and in people's eyes it will still be an Internet company. However, after creating a parent company, Google can instantly become a non-Internet company. Although the original Google is still the main body, with the development of the times, it will eventually fade out of the public eye, and will be replaced by a great technology or comprehensive company: Alphabet.
The emergence of Alphabet and the Internet+ trend in China are similar in that they are both instrumentalization of the Internet. The greater the impact of the Internet, the more it goes from existence to non-existence, just like water and electricity. Look at Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent today. They are all desperately integrating with traditional industries. When the revenue from Internet+ exceeds their Internet business, who can still say whether they are Internet companies? Just like General Electric, is it still an electrical company?
There are no more Internet companies in the world. This is a trend and a tendency. Google's transformation into Alphabet is just the beginning.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.