You could also consider Google as Alphabet's primary, or "alpha" bet, but Google is also investing in a variety of "other bets". The name also provides for cool URLs, like https://abc.xyz.
"Other Bets" includes everything under the Alphabet umbrella that is not Google, which means various entities that are supposed to be turning into individually profitable companies.
Alphabet is more like a holding company which Google was put under, right? Google kept its name and its trademark. Compare https://about.google/ with https://about.facebook.com/ . The first is all about Google not Alphabet, while the second is about Meta and Facebook is not mentioned aside from the URL address.
Besides, I didn't see any good acronym with only A and M...
“Mostly it seems to me that they want a 'moonshot' company that has the original profitability of search advertising, full stop.”
Well, when Larry page wrote “we also like that it means alpha-bet”[1], a lot of readers in tech probably mistook him at his word. When it comes to investing, “alpha” means winner. As in somebody else loses. As in what gets optimized is _the investor_, not necessarily the community. The analogy to investment return above benchmark is a trademark Googley delusion—- it’s rationalizing a position using math or science even when the position (applauding investing culture) is exclusionary or even toxic to a substantial segment of the population (e.g. the 99% who either don’t invest or who form the ETF benchmark). Larry isn’t talking about excellence, he’s talking about dominating, and slipping that through with a cute abc.xyz domain name.
While it’s very interesting to hear these stories about Google, perhaps the lesson learned is just how blind people are to Google’s greed when technical adventures are dangled in front of them.
This was the idea of alphabet - Google the search engine is one of the companies Alphabet holds. Google is an established company that can be milked but revenue has probably grown as much as it can.
To continue to show growth, alphabet planned to bet a moderate investment on entering new sectors with huge growth prospects, making medium term investments by buying leading companies and giving them the funding they needed to get ahead.
This is why Google no longer does stuff like Google X, 20% time etc - as a subsidiary they have got out of the innovation business, at least any more than other established companies.
Until now the only Alphabet subsidiary was Google Inc. The other bets were still Google Inc subsidiaries. This move brings them up a level and separates them from Google.
It was a pun on "alpha"(the investment/speculation term)-"bets".
The original idea is that the Google founders would use Alphabet as holding company for their "alpha-bets", but apparently since Pichai took over of Alphabet as well this venture is probably also "Killed by Google"...
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