© 2018 American University Model United Nations Conference All rights reserved. No part of this background guide may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission from the American University Model United Nations Conference Secretariat. Please direct all questions to [email protected] Zarina Neff Chair Hello delegates and welcome to the Alphabet Committee! I am Zarina Neff and I am one of the two chairs in this committee. I am a second year student here at the American University and I am in the School of International Services. I am majoring in National Security with a regional focus on Eurasia. I am also minoring in Global Health because I believe that you cannot have peace and security in a country without healthy people! Besides focusing on my studies, I am also the president of the Central Asian Club here at AU, a member of AmeriMUNC and WIRC, an active member at The Security Network at AU, and enjoy looking through Instagram’s high fashion accounts on my free time. I am one proud Uzbek girl and love telling people about Uzbekistan! Fun fact, if I was not majoring in IR, I would be studying Neurology. Now in terms of the committee, we understand that while this is a crisis based committee with frequent crisis updates coming in, we want to make sure that everyone stays diplomatic and professional with one another during debate. We will be tackling real life issues concerning the advancements of technology and how these developments will impact the future. We hope that you will be analyzing these issue by looking closely at how different entities in a country utilizes these developments, how they impact the relations between certain countries, and lastly how technological developments impact international business and finance. Erik and I want to make sure that you stay on track but we also want to make sure that you leave the conference with funny slogans and puns. With this being said, welcome to the Alphabet Committee and we hope you enjoy AmeriMUNC! Best, Zarina Neff Erik Hansen Chair Dear Delegates, Welcome to the Alphabet Committee! My name is Erik Hansen, and I'm a sophomore from Setauket, NY. Here at American, I’m pursuing my Justice and Law major in the School of Public Affairs and a minor in Communications in the School of Communication. I’m new to Model UN, but I was a crisis analyst for AmeriMUNC’s last conference WIRC. I am so excited to work with all of you in committee! Our mission is to assess and mitigate as crisis ensues in a world of technological advances and interconnectedness like never before. I know that all of you are well equipped to both maximize profits while protecting customers and clients. We face many threats from authoritarian governments, to privacy concerns, meeting customer expectations, and competition to maintain our front running as the industry’s leader. This background guide is comprehensive, but I sincerely implore you to gather your research before committee as you learn both about your roles but the environment in which we act, we don’t live in a vacuum! But above all else come with a positive attitude and a sense of eagerness for our very exciting congregation. I’ll already know this will be a great experience! Don't hesitate with any questions; I’m here to help y'all! Best regards, Erik Hansen 03 BOARD OF DIRECTORS of ALPHABET INC. 01 BOARD OF DIRECTORS of ALPHABET INC. ABOUT Alphabet Inc. Alphabet is a multinational conglomerate based in the Silicon Valley. Its influence has spread all across the globe and has made Alphabet a household company name. Alphabet is the parent company of Google and many of Google’s former subsidiaries This guide explores various factors that affect Alphabet’s development. Alphabet, Inc., headquartered in Alphabet includes 26 Mountain View, California, is an subsidiaries (deliberately, as this is the American holding company that number of letters in the English comprises Google and many of its alphabet), Google the most subsidiaries. The company serves as a recognizable one. Each business has its parent to organizations in several fields- own CEO, all of whom report to Larry technology, investment capital, Page. Some of the most prominent research, and science among them. It branches under Alphabet include was created in August 2015 in order to Calico (fights age-related disease), streamline the process of Internet Google Ventures (funds new services but also to grant companies companies and ideas), Fiber (provides under Google that were unrelated to high-speed internet), Nest (invents technology, such as driverless cars and ‘smart home’ products), Jigsaw anti-aging research, greater autonomy (counters global and political issues among themselves. When the with technological solutions), and organization was created, current Waymo (develops self-driving Google CEO Larry Page moved to technology). A few others include become CEO of the entire Alphabet Chronicle, which prevents cybercrime; project, while Sundar Pichai took over Dandelion, which offers geothermal Page’s role at Google. Google is still the heating installation; CapitalG, a venture largest branch under Alphabet, and capital fund; DeepMind, a British continued, largely without change, artificial intelligence company; Sidewalk since 2015 to be the consumer-focused Labs, an urban infrastructure brand in charge of Youtube, Android, improvement project; and Verily, the Maps, and its other familiar endeavors. research organization with a focus on 06 life sciences. The move to bring each of motivation, and retention of employees these companies under Alphabet was and affiliates of Alphabet. The done to increase accountability, Nominating Committee identifies and according to Page, and Ruth Porat, now evaluates individuals who could the CFO of Alphabet, was brought in potentially be strong Board members, from Wall Street to implement this by and the Executive Committee serves as structuring Alphabet to give investors a the primary administration to approve clearer understanding of how well each specific corporate actions not already of the subsidiaries is performing outlined in the charter on Alphabet’s individually. website. Within each of these main With regards to autonomy and goals, the committees can review and purview of the Alphabet Board of make recommendations to the Directors, their responsibilities and executive offers, fully investigate any capabilities differ depending on which matters brought to their attention, of the four board committees they monitor spending or performance belong to; the Audit Committee, (whichever pertains to their committee), Leadership Development and and establish short- and long-term Compensation Committee, Nominating performance goals and expectations. and Corporate Governance Committee, and Executive Committee each have different ranges of powers. The Audit Committee’s primary focus is to oversee the accounting and financial reporting process, while the Leadership Development and Compensation Committee handles the compensation,. 02 Alphabet’s Expanding Influence the last quarter alone. In the past several years, increased Overall Alphabet has seen its digital advertising revenue as well as a expansion bulwarked by an ambitious highly diversified field of apps and business strategy that shows services have driven Alphabet’s consistence in its core products and expansion. Alphabet and its subsidiary services (like Google’s search engine Google currently boast several services and advertising), while also with over one billion monthly active encouraging additional investment in users (MAU) including YouTube, advanced and experimental services Chrome, Maps, Gmail and the Google like cloud software. Alphabet’s Play Store. All of these apps serve as penchant to invest in research and platforms for digital Google ads, while development of new technology will Alphabet’s Android operating system continue to pay off as the company allows Google to get both ads and its expands, especially with experimental own apps in front of more users on their services such as Android operating browsers or smartphones. YouTube has systems for self-driving cars and cloud been especially crucial in Alphabet’s software already showing promising market expansion, the video platform signs in terms of revenue and investor has made use of more advanced interest. software to target ads to specific audiences, and to collect data about Alphabet’s Role in the Global Market the most effective ads based on user Alphabet’s recent expansion into other interaction. This advanced software has fields and services, coupled with an had a tangible effect on YouTube’s impressive growth in revenue over the revenue for Alphabet; independent past several quarters has allowed the analysis by Baird Wealth Management company to pursue a much larger role estimates that YouTube will generate in the global market. One area where $15 billion for Alphabet in 2019. Alphabet has beat other technology companies is establishing a business Alphabet’s expansion has also been foothold in the highly restrictive aided by increased investment and Chinese market. While the so-called development of outside non-advertising “Great Firewall” maintained by the services. In the first quarter of 2018 Chinese Government restricts Alphabet doubled its investments Alphabet’s Google search engine, the expenditures in the field of cloud parent company has made some computing and memory services, an headway in China by partnering with area that has been extremely popular local Chinese tech companies and with tech investors in recent years. startups. Alphabet has partnered with Alphabet’s investment in the Beijing based smartwatch maker non-advertising services has Mobvoi, which relies on Google substantially paid off for the company’s software to power its line of watches growth; cloud services, Alphabet and Bluetooth speakers. Several manufactured hardware, and the Chinese companies including Mobvoi Google Play store saw a 36.5% also use TensorFlow (Google’s set of increase in revenue to $4.4 billion in development tools) to design and 08 commitment to the core businesses that have helped Alphabet succeed.