The parent company of search engine giant Google is the 4th company on the list of the most valuable company in the U.S., with a market valuation of $1.67 trillion. In the past 52-week period, Alphabet's stock price has risen nearly 80%. Google was founded in September 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University in California. The company went public in 2004. In 2015, Google was reorganized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Besides Google Search, Alphabets owns Android mobile platform, YouTube, Google Maps, and Gmail among others. Of late, the company has drawn flak from politicians and regulators, which includes concern for tax avoidance, misuse and manipulation of search results, its use of others' intellectual property, and concerns that its compilation of data may violate people's privacy among others.