Consider that the target audience of the WSJ is much more "investor" than "technologist". You really think investors wouldn't want mention of a company that might be in their portfolio? 'Cause that company isn't "Google", it's "Alphabet".
If you've invested in Alphabet without knowing that it's the company formerly known as Google you probably aren't someone who reads many articles about them.
If you thought Alphabet is the company formerly known as Google, you would be wrong. Alphabet is a conglomerate created to hold Google and was created first as a subsidiary of Google, to which a separate dummy subsidiary was created with which Google merged to convert Google stock into Alphabet stock.
Alphabet is not Google. Alphabet never was Google. Alphabet owns Google, and the performance of Google is tracked under Alphabet's own stock (which still uses GOOG, but is a concretely different stock). There is a difference, and these are people to whom it matters.
And what "everyone knows" is not relevant to WSJ's audience. The company is Alphabet. It is not Google. I don't think this can be stated in simpler terms.
The WSJ's news section can be considered jargon of its own. I'm sure you would not react in the same way if a "business guy" criticized a piece of technical reporting for things you expected to be in it.
> The company is Alphabet. It is not Google. I don't think this can be stated in simpler terms.
Those terms are simple, but not accurate. The company this story is about is Google. Alphabet is the public traded corporation in whom WSJ readers may wish to invest (or disinvest) that owns the company the story is about. (Google and Alphabet are both companies, but Alphabet isn't taking any action that is being reported in this story.)
If your point is "that's the same thing", it's not, see elsewhere in this subtree. If your point is "that would be clearer", I agree; if the WSJ's standards for prose in reporting meant that they put stock ticker names in the headline, I'd guess that they would have (I don't recall ever seeing them do so before). But consistency, in technical publications, is generally valued. The name of the company in which readers hold stock is "Alphabet"--therefore, call it Alphabet.
Offices, on the other hand? Marginally more competitive. My last office had a Google Mini lying around! Not nailed to a wall, though I suppose it could have been and provided the same utility.
No, that's not true. I was using it to shim a monitor for a while. Nest still reigns supreme.