Alphabet proves Google is normal

OK, everyone, calm down. Breathe. Yes, what happened on Monday was a tad unexpected - the Internet's seismic needle may even have gone off the chart for a minute - but let's be honest here: It's not like we just witnessed another Big Bang.

On the contrary, what happened was actually utterly normal: A company made the decision to restructure. It's what companies - big or small - do. To stay in the game, you have to be able to adapt.

Of course you're right, Google isn't just any old company. It's the gateway to the Internet. The tech titan makes sure we get from A to B, and then tells us where to get the best pizza. Google tracks our digital footprint to help create a world tailor-made to our needs - many of which we didn't even know were real needs. And Google wants to connect even the most remote crannies of the globe to the Internet. If the mountain won't come to Muhammad...

But that's not all - not by a long shot. The company from Mountain View, CA, also wants to bring us self-driving cars. Heck, it is has so much money it could buy up Volkswagen without breaking a sweat at the bank. Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have developed a taste for companies that aim to shape the future. That's why last year they spent $3.2 billion (2.9 billion euros) to add home-automation company Nest to their portfolio.

And smart-homes are only the beginning. At Google's own research labs, scientists are working to create the ideal healthy human being, developing drugs that extend our lives. Possibly so we can use Google longer.

Google has expanded so rapidly, the 2006 takeover of video-sharing behemoth YouTube seems but a faint memory.

Page and Brin have long since left the garage. Since Google's inception 17 years ago, it's gone from online algorithm to one of the world's biggest entrepreneurs, employing 66,000 people and raking in $66 billion worth of sales. But for a company that gave us Google Maps, it's become increasingly difficult to figure out where it's going. That's a question that's been dogging the two founders for years - and one that's unnerved shareholders.

By launching the holding company Alphabet, the owners are hoping to change that. Think of Alphabet as Page and Brin's new mansion, where each business branch - from Internet to life sciences - is finally getting its own room. One floor for earning money, and another for spending it.

Their decision may have caught most people off guard, but it probably shouldn't have. After all, a company like Google has to stay on its toes. In the Internet Age, it's live fast, die young. For now, the 16-year-old firm is strong, but there's no telling if it will live to see 25. Chances are there's another start-up with an even better algorithm lurking in the bushes of Silicon Valley, plotting to snatch Google's crown.

No, what hit the tech world on Monday was not a meteor, it wasn't even an earthquake. It was simply Google doing what it should have done long ago: trying to get the money-making machine into gear after years of slowing ad revenues, as more and more user traffic moves from desktops to smartphones - an avenue for income growth where rival Facebook has left Google in the dust. Obviously, there's no way Page and Brin would have stood by and watch Zuckerberg whiz by unchallenged.

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