[eropple]

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".

[jinst8gmi]

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.

[eropple]

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.

[jinst8gmi]

Quite a convenient way of structuring things if you're worried about anti-monopoly regulators?

In practice everyone knows it's everything which was previously under the Google umbrella.

[eropple]

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.

[dragonwriter]

> 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.)

[eropple]

Sure, you are that most important kind of correct: technically so. And so I'll amend it: "the company that matters to the WSJ's audience is Alphabet because they're where the money is."

The mixture of pedantry and willful vagueness in this thread is weird.

[gohrt]

Google is a company. Alphabet is a company. Alphabet owns Google.

[melvinmt]

The stocks are still listed as GOOG and GOOGL.

[eropple]

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.