THIS week, the Internet giant Google became just part of a new umbrella company called Alphabet. Its founders hope to show the world and its investors that it’s far more than an online advertising business.

Since launching in a Californian garage in 1998 – Google has become a digital powerhouse, which has made the lion’s share of its money from web searches and the associated advertising. Today – 1.2bn people use Google every month to search the Internet, and chalk up an eye-watering 12bn searches a month. Just six years ago, the company developed its Android smartphone software, which is now on over 1bn devices worldwide.

Google made an incredible $17.8bn in the first three months of the year, and now sits on $7bn in cold, hard cash – an incredible figure, when you find out how its been investing its money in all manner of projects that others would consider not-central to their business.

Many businesses in Silicon Valley are keen not to go the way of once great US companies like Kodak – the veteran photographic company who actually invented, and then hid the world’s first digital camera – way back in the late 1970s. It existed some 20 years before consumers got their hands on them, but Kodak were not first to market, and saw their business dumped into the dustbin of history.

Successive generations of Kodak management were so focused on counting the seemingly endless trucks filled with cash form its sales of film and developing that it didn’t think of a scenario where people were using different technology, and ultimately saw the cash drying up. This fear of sleepwalking into extinction has haunted the Google bosses for years.

Now as part of Alphabet – the Internet business, famous for services like YouTube and its homepage doodles, can continue as Google – but its impressive roster of ‘other’ businesses, can now stand on their own, from autonomous cars and drones to robotic, and even healthcare.

This feels like the beginning of a glorious new future for Alphabet – as it continues to invest Google’s money in all manner of businesses that may safeguard its future for many, many years to come.