The Vanguard Group is Alphabet’s largest institutional investor, managing billions in index funds and ETFs. As of 2025, Vanguard owns about 7.5% of Alphabet’s total shares, mostly in Class A (GOOGL) and Class C (GOOG) shares, which carry one vote or no vote respectively. Brin stepped away from day-to-day operations in 2019 but, like Page, remains on Alphabet’s board and holds considerable control through super-voting rights.
Is Android owned by Google or Alphabet?
The company’s mission is to use technology to address some of the most pressing global security challenges, such as those related to cyber-attacks, online censorship, and political extremism. The technology behind Intrinsic Innovation was developed at X for five years before it became an independent Alphabet company. Today, Intrinsic is focused on identifying partners in the electronics, healthcare, and automotive industries that are already using industrial robotics.
Elon Musk Reportedly Had Affair With Sergey Brin’s Wife—Ending Billionaires’ Friendship
- In March 2023, in direct response to the rapid rise of ChatGPT, Google released Bard (now Gemini), a generative artificial intelligence chatbot.
- On August 10, 2015, Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced they were creating the new holding company, Alphabet Inc.
- The company opened on the NASDAQ National Market under the ticker symbol GOOGL with an offering of 19,605,052 shares at a price of $85 per share.
- This daily trading activity provides investors with the liquidity and flexibility they seek when trading shares of a company like Alphabet.
- The wind energy comes from two power plants in South Dakota, one in Iowa and one in Oklahoma.
- The system is the largest rooftop photovoltaic power station constructed on a U.S. corporate campus and one of the largest on any corporate site in the world.
The $12.5 billion Motorola Mobility deal was Google’s largest buyout at the time, meant to give the company a powerful phone brand that could compete directly with Apple’s iPhone line. However, Google’s Motorola phones never rose to the challenge, and Alphabet sold most of it to Chinese technology giant Lenovo (LNVG.Y -0.68%) three years later. That deal excluded “the vast majority” of Motorola’s mobile patent collection, so Alphabet still holds on to some small part of Motorola. Lenovo only paid $2.9 billion for the smartphone business and supporting assets. With its family of apps and Reality Labs segments, Meta has become a huge technology company. This strategy helps the company extend its reach far beyond its original search engine roots, pursuing a future where its technology intersects with almost every aspect of our lives.
Who Really Owns Google (Alphabet) and Who Controls It
The court ruled in September that Google must end some agreements and share certain search data with rivals, but would not have to divest Chrome, Android, or its core search business. The decision came as advances in generative AI were emerging as a threat to the Google-dominated search model, adding potential competitive pressure to the company’s regulatory challenges. On August 10, 2015, Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced they were creating the new holding company, Alphabet Inc. This allowed the various departments that weren’t directly related to Google’s main Internet services to spin off into their own subcompanies within the same business umbrella.
How Owners Acquired Their Shares
In Google’s 2013 Founders Letter, Larry Page described the company’s core focus as “health, well-being, and longevity.” Google’s business model (now Alphabet) started as a search engine to navigate the who own google now web, and over the years, it acquired other companies like YouTube and Android. It placed other bets on what the company defines as “moonshots.” Among the other bets are companies like Verily, Nest, Access, and Waymo.
In 2022, Alphabet was the company with the second-highest expenditure on research and development worldwide, with R&D expenditure amounting to US$39.5 billion. In 2023, Alphabet was ranked 7th in the Global 2000 (World’s Largest Public Companies). On 10 December 2024, Alphabet’s shares rose about 5% after the company unveiled its new quantum computing chip, Willow.
- However, Larry Page and Sergey Brin together control over 50% of Alphabet’s voting shares, giving them effective control over major decisions.
- Under the Delaware General Corporation Law (where Alphabet is incorporated), a holding company reorganization such as this can be done without a vote of shareholders, as this reorganization was.
- While Alphabet is the parent company and technical “Google owner,” the day-to-day operations of Google are still run by its own CEO and management team.
- This structure ensures that the founders retain significant control over Alphabet’s decisions, even as their ownership stake has decreased over time.
- It manages both active and passive funds and invests in Class A shares, providing limited voting power.
The mission of the founders of Google was “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Before it became a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google Inc. was first structured as the owner of Alphabet. The roles were reversed after a placeholder subsidiary was created for the ownership of Alphabet, at which point the newly formed subsidiary was merged with Google. Under the Delaware General Corporation Law (where Alphabet is incorporated), a holding company reorganization such as this can be done without a vote of shareholders, as this reorganization was. Alphabet retains Google Inc.’s stock price history and continues to trade under Google Inc.’s former ticker symbols “GOOG” and “GOOGL”. In his announcement, Page stated that the planned holding company would allow for “more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren’t very related” to Google.
The investigation claimed Google used its market power to prevent rivals from competing fairly, affecting billions spent on digital ads. Google rejected the findings as flawed, stating that its ad tech benefits businesses. If found guilty, Google could face penalties of up to 10% of its global turnover. Similar investigations are ongoing in the U.S. and EU, where regulators have suggested that Google may need to sell part of its ad-tech business. It was ruled in 2025 by the Justice Department alongside 17 other states that Google operates a monopoly in online advertising technology. The case will now move to a remedies stage which may lead to Alphabet, the owner of Google, being broken up.
In October 2024, Google was fined by a local Russian court a symbolic 2.5 decillion dollars for allegedly blocking pro-Kremlin propaganda. While Alphabet is a publicly traded company, its founders retain significant influence. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s original creators, still hold substantial voting power through their special class of shares. With that, Alphabet Inc. took its place as one of the world’s most powerful companies. Its unusual ownership structure and the dreams of its founders have been integral to its success. Larry Page and Sergey Brin maintain extreme control through their Class B shares.
How is Google’s ownership structured?
If they do it, conversion to ordinary shares will not happen immediately, but after nine months. There is one exception to this rule, and that is if original holders of Class B shares sell those shares to another original holder of B class shares. Owning class B shares is the key to Larry and Sergey’s control of Alphabet (Google). The reason why certain Alphabet’s shareholders have outsized voting power compared to their ownership stake is that Alphabet Inc. has three classes of outstanding shares with different rights. In 2022, Google began accepting requests for the removal of phone numbers, physical addresses and email addresses from its search results.
When a company decides to issue equity in the form of common stocks, it can do so in several types depending on the limitations that the owners of the company want to give to voting powers. Be aware of the founders’ super-voting powers and the fact that it is not going away anytime soon. And I am not talking about obvious illegal things like channeling money from Google to other companies under the founder’s control. The problem might also be if founders use Alphabet as a playground for their pet projects, which has no financial value for other shareholders.
The largest shareholders that own Alphabet (Google) are Vanguard, which owns a 7.0% share, followed by BlackRock (6.2%), co-founder Larry Page (6.1%), and co-founder Sergey Brin (5.7%). However, Larry and Sergey control Alphabet with 51.2% of all votes, thanks to their “super-voting” shares. While there may not be one single individual or group who completely “owns” Google, its various owners can rest assured knowing that they are helping support one of the world’s largest tech companies with their investments.