There’s at least one guy who really loves the name of Google’s new parent company Alphabet: Chris from Ohio.
Chris Andrikanich got his 15 minutes of fame because his Twitter handle is @alphabet, which happens to be the name of the new parent company announced by the search giant on Monday.
Alphabet will be run by Google (GOOGL, Tech30) co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, operating as an umbrella company over Google’s many ventures. Sundar Pichai is taking over as CEO of Google.
Well, that was an interesting way to end a Monday…
— Chris Andrikanich (@alphabet) August 10, 2015
Congratulations to the owner of @alphabet, you just won the Twitter handle lottery.
— Lev Naginsky (@levnaginsky) August 10, 2015
According to Twitter’s Rules, users may not buy or sell user names. But there is an underground market for Twitter handles and others have spent thousands to buy the handles they want.
According to one Reddit post, submitted over a year ago, one entrepreneur was offered for $15,000 for his handle. ReadWrite reported on a $50,000 offer for a Twitter handle in 2014.
Regardless, Google wasn’t caught without a handle. It has gone live with @aIphabetinc. (That’s aIphabet with a capital “i”).
Andrikanich, who is a marketing director for an Ohio-based publishing firm according to his LinkedIn, did not respond immediately to requests for comment. His Twitter bio reads: “Dad. Husband. Self-proclaimed geek who fires off regular gibberish, gobblety-gook about sports, tech, CLE, and whatever…”