In its early years, Google revolutionized search with its PageRank algorithm, which ranked websites based on relevance and popularity. By 2000, it introduced AdWords, a groundbreaking advertising platform that became its primary revenue source. The company went public in 2004, solidifying its place as a tech giant. Looker, founded in 2011 by Lloyd Tabb, helps companies to easily extract and analyze data. Most legacy business intelligence systems at the time required users to have engineering and programming expertise to extract data and analyze it. Looker simplified the process by taking programming queries and modifying them to read more like natural languages, such as English.

Financial services

Indeed, in 2019, on a base salary of $2 million, Pichai got stock awards of over $276 million. Each share of Class A common stock is entitled to one vote for each director nominee and one vote for each of the proposals to be voted on. It would also allow those blogs to jump from amateurs to making money via advertising. In short, Google would allow businesses to show their banners on the estate of those blogs, which had become the heart of the web in the 2000s. Google was primarily targeting technology from Applied Semantics called AdSense. And until fundamental performance shifts, public investment managers seem happy to go along for the profitable ride while debating governance mechanics.

If any of the two founders die, their stock will automatically convert to ordinary Class A shares with one vote per share. This means Class B shares cannot be inherited without losing their extra voting powers. 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. However, Eric Schmidt controls 4.2% of all votes thanks to owning super-voting shares.As of December 2022, the market value of Eric Schmidt’s stake in Alphabet was $6.3 billion. However, Sergey Brin controls 24.9% of all votes thanks to owning super-voting shares.As of December 2022, the market value of Sergey Brin’s stake in Alphabet was $65.4 billion.

  • If founders make some provision beforehand, their voting rights can be transferred in case of their death to other class B shareholders.
  • Using your broker’s order entry tool, which is typically prominently displayed on the home screen, enter your order, and you’ll become a Google (Alphabet) shareholder.
  • BlackRock is the second-largest shareholder of Alphabet, owning 6.2% of its shares.

Institutional Investors: Passive but Powerful

Before we dive into the top individual shareholders of Alphabet stock, it’s important to mention that there are some limitations. Unless someone owns more than 5% of a certain class of a company’s stock or they serve as a company executive or board member, there is no requirement for them to disclose their investment to the public. We also don’t have public information about the Class C share holdings (GOOG 0.1%) of any of these individuals, if any, since they don’t come with voting rights. With that in mind, here are the five largest individual shareholders listed on Alphabet’s most recent proxy filing.

In case original holders sell them, stocks who own google now automatically convert to ordinary Class A shares with one vote per share. Its Class A shares have been publicly traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange since 2004 under the ticker “GOOGL”. The largest ones are Vanguard, which owns a 7.0% share, followed by BlackRock (6.2%), co-founder Larry Page (6.1%), co-founder Sergey Brin (5.7%), and ex-CEO Eric Schmidt (0.6%). Larry Page and Sergey Brin own about 14% of Google’s publicly listed shares and 56% of the company’s super-voting stock.

Back in the day, Brin and Page didn’t hide their resentment toward the advertising business model, which was the prevalent model for search. The journey of innovations started in 2000 when AdWords was introduced for businesses to run advertisements on Google. And it was not long enough before Adwards became the major revenue source for Google. So in today’s article, we are going to walk you through the shareholders and owners of Google.

Its parent company, Alphabet Inc., was created in 2015 to oversee Google and its other ventures. Page and Brin hold Class B shares, which carry 10 votes per share, compared to the single vote per share of Class A shares held by the public. This structure ensures that the founders retain significant control over Alphabet’s decisions, even as their ownership stake has decreased over time. But, you might understandably ask, wait a minute, founders also own class C shares without voting rights. This way, they can liquidate up to 50% of their shares (all class C shares) without decreasing their voting power at all. Alphabet Inc. is a cash-generating machine, and even though it does not pay dividends, it distributes cash to investors in the form of share buyback.

Alphabet Inc., founded by Google‘s co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, owns both YouTube and Google. Google acquired YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion, marking one of its most significant acquisitions. YouTube has since become one of Google’s flagship products, boasting over 2 billion monthly active users. Check out the top 5 Alphabet shareholders who are also known as the owners of Google. Three of these shareholders are institutional investors and the other two are individuals.

  • Alphabet (Google) is kind of a “different” company from most others.
  • Google accounts for substantially all of Alphabet’s revenue, so an investment in Alphabet is essentially a direct investment in Google.
  • Google stressed that the acquisition is about devices rather than data and made commitments that user data would not be used for Google ads.
  • YouTube has grown into a significant source of Alphabet’s ad revenue, while also generating revenue through premium and YouTube TV subscriptions.
  • Some recent Google acquisitions have set the stage for the company’s journey into artificial intelligence, robotics, cybersecurity, and more.

Who Owns Google: Shareholder Details of Google

Sergey does not currently hold any executive position within Google or Alphabet. However, he is still, together with Larry Page, a controlling shareholder, and member of Alphabet’s Board of Directors. Thanks to his stake in Alphabet Inc., he is one of the world’s wealthiest people. However, the actual decision power is in the hands of Vanguard’s insiders since the ownership is diluted over millions of investors worldwide. The following table summarizes how much is each shareholder’s stake in Alphabet Inc. worth.

Who is the owner of Google? Hint: the company also owns video giant YouTube.

Seven major companies owned by Alphabet are YouTube, Waze, DoubleClick, Nest, Looker, Fitbit, and Mandiant. Google is a subsidiary of Alphabet, which is a publicly traded holding company. For most individuals, the ability to vote in company elections isn’t an issue. And that’s especially true here since co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin hold a voting majority due to their super-voting Class B shares. GOOGL shares trade for a tiny premium to their GOOG counterparts, but all three share classes represent the exact same economic interest in the business. Alphabet is a publicly traded company that is owned by its shareholders.

However, Larry and Sergey control Alphabet with 51.2% of all votes, thanks to their “super-voting” shares. Sergey Brin is also the co-founder and institutional shareholder of Google Inc. He is the sixth-wealthiest man in the US, with a reported net worth of $116 billion.

Holding 108,036,557 shares, T.Rowe Price’s investment underscores its optimism towards Alphabet’s continued dominance and innovation. As President and Chief Investment Officer, Porat’s 112,836 shares signify her crucial role in steering Alphabet’s financial strategies towards sustained growth. With 19,513,614 shares as of April 2022, Page’s leadership and innovation have been pivotal in Google’s journey, from its inception to its reigning status as a tech behemoth. Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet and Google, owns less than 1% of the company. While his stake is relatively small, his leadership role gives him significant influence over the company’s operations. As Alphabet expands into new frontiers like AI, quantum computing, and healthcare, its shareholders will play a pivotal role in shaping its future.

We will also dive into the historical stream of Google to help you understand the knitting of Google’s ownership. People can draw the information they need with a few searches and clicks. Google is more than just a browser; the company’s amazing people are doing a great job. From apps to devices and operating systems to solutions, Google is almost everywhere around us.

Since its restructuring in 2015, Google has become a subsidiary of Alphabet, which oversees its core businesses including search, YouTube, and Android. Fitbit was founded in 2007 by James Park and Eric Friedman, whose goal was to create a wearable product that leveraged wireless technology to enhance users’ health and fitness. The company’s products include smartwatches, armband fitness trackers, a digital fitness tracking application, and related gear, accessories, and services. Google (Alphabet) is a publicly traded company with shares listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. Be aware of the founders’ super-voting powers and the fact that it is not going away anytime soon. But we don’t need to worry because Class B shares have their super-voting power only if they are in the hands of the original holders.