Google stopped being the Google we all knew last year when it formed a new umbrella parent company called Alphabet. Now, following the first quarterly earnings call for Alphabet, the company's market capitalization (a measure of value based on the price of outstanding shares) has topped that of Apple. That means by one measure, Alphabet is the most valuable company on the planet.

Alphabet beat expectations with revenue of $17.3 billion and $8.67 earnings per share. Investors were looking for $16.9 billion. The after hours spike in stock price is currently over 39.50 (5.25%). That places Alphabet's total market cap at over $550 billion, while Apple languishes at a mere $538 billion. These numbers jump around a lot, so it's possible Apple will be back on top in the morning. This has happened briefly once before back in 2009, but Apple has been solidly ahead ever since.

Alphabet went into detail, saying that the non-Google parts (not including Nest and Google Fiber) of the conglomerate pulled in $448 million in revenue, but overall those parts of the company lost $3.567 billion. Alphabet considers these bets on the future that could pay off big later on with projects like self-driving cars and Project Loon. Even with those losses, investors are pretty happy right now.