US-based ★ Google's "Alphabet": The Unconventional Silicon Valley Spirit Lives On

On August 10, Google announced its management restructuring and the establishment of its holding company, Alphabet. Under Alphabet, Google will become a subsidiary alongside other entities previously part of Google, including: - Google X, the research lab developing next-generation technologies like self-driving cars and drones - Nest Labs, developing smart home technology - Google Ventures and Google Capital, the investment arms - Calico, the biotechnology division focused on life sciences and aging research. John Marshall, Chief Strategy Officer at Lippincott, a creative consulting firm, noted in Ad Age that this event demonstrates "Silicon Valley always rewrites the rules."

The current mainstream brand-building strategy is extremely concise: "Build a powerful parent brand, pour investment into it, and thoroughly leverage that parent brand to permeate everything from your own employees to investors and consumers." Naturally, individual brands also have their own unique strategies, but the structure centered on one powerful parent brand remains firmly entrenched and continues to spread. The market trend leans toward reducing the number of brands and integrating acquired brands. Global brands like 3M, General Electric (GE), and IBM have all succeeded in building distinctive brand families under one powerful parent brand. Generally, "keep the brand system simple" is the iron rule.

Google, however, is different. It boldly pursued the idea of establishing a holding company, Alphabet, and placing it above the powerful Google brand. This may be the most significant brand birth of the past decade. Far from shrinking, Google's brand portfolio is expanding, seemingly unconcerned by the complexity of its organizational structure or the significant costs associated with multiple brands. Google's new organizational structure under Alphabet may create space for many brands to exist in parallel, rather than focusing on a single brand.

Silicon Valley's "unorthodox" approach extends beyond Google. Online video streaming service Netflix stunned HR professionals worldwide by introducing groundbreaking unlimited vacation policies as part of its HR reform. Taxi-hailing service Uber maintains a $50 billion market cap while employing almost no staff. Amazon, too, is partnering with chains like 7-Eleven through supply chain reforms to introduce delivery lockers in stores. It may even use drones for these deliveries.

Among these corporate strategies, Google's creation of Alphabet stands out. Can a brand whose sole role is to oversee the Google family—a collection of uniquely "uncorporate" innovative companies—truly succeed? Can value be generated from such a complex organizational structure? Can Google's own singular brand identity be sustained even as it focuses its activities on the search business, where the limits of its scale are foreseeable?