Google is one of the most popular and successful companies in the world. It is the world’s largest search engine and offers a wide range of other products and services, including email, maps, and advertising. But who owns Google?
This article will take a closer look at Google’s ownership. We will discuss the company’s history, structure, and ownership by Alphabet Inc.
Who Owns Google: Overview
Larry Page and Sergey Brin started Google Inc., the popular American search engine, in 1998. According to Google, the engine, originally called Backrub, was designed in the dorms of two Stanford University graduate students. The name is a play on the mathematical phrase “googol,” which is one followed by 100 zeros. Google became public in 2004 and has since evolved to become the most visited website in the world, with 89 billion visits in April 2022.
In 2015, the firm renamed itself Alphabet Inc., and it now operates as a technology conglomerate that owns Google and its subsidiaries. According to insiders, Alphabet is divided into Google and Other Bets, which focus on the company’s other business operations. Fitbit, Waze, and YouTube are among these companies.
Fitbit, a more recent acquisition, is primarily concerned with fitness technologies. It joined Alphabet’s roster in early 2021 and is known for wearable activity trackers that monitor various heart rates, breathing rates, and sleep cycles.
YouTube is a video-sharing website where users worldwide watch 694,000 hours of content per minute. Google bought YouTube in 2006, just over a year after it launched. The services of Google and YouTube are intertwined. For example, users must first register a Google account to join YouTube.
Google’s Founders
Google is a renowned search engine developed in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. This search engine has become a part of our daily lives, with users ranging from students to engineers to global organizations. At first, Google’s creators dubbed it “BackRub” since the search engine depended primarily on hyperlinks.
The term “Google” is a misspelled form of “googol,” which refers to the number 10 multiplied by a hundred. The year Google was formed, Larry Page and Sergey Brin were still in college.
What is Google?
Google is a search engine founded on September 15, 1997, and incorporated on September 4, 1998. Larry and Sergey, Google’s co-founders, created the PageRank algorithm together. They initially called Google “BackRub” since the system used hyperlinks to determine a site’s importance.
The creators of Google later changed the name to Google, inspired by the word “Googol,” to indicate that the search engine was created to give massive amounts of information.
Who is the Owner of Google?
Google’s founders, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin, own more than 51% of the voting power. Other individual stockholders include Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, and John Doerr, a venture capitalist and early investor in the company. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt holds 4.2% of the vote. BlackRock and The Vanguard Group are the most important institutional shareholders, with 2.7% and 3.1%, respectively.
Because Google is not a private company, it is not owned by a single person; instead, Alphabet is owned by individuals and institutions such as the Vanguard Group, BlackRock, Fidelity Management & Research LLC, Sundar Pichai, its CEO, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin, its two co-founders, among others.
Google LLC is one of the most well-known corporations in the world today. They dominate the worldwide technology business with their goods and services spanning from search engines to video sharing, email, navigation, and cloud computing.
Google is best recognized as a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., a multinational conglomerate founded in 2015 to restructure Google’s organizational structure. This was led by co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who founded Google in 1998 as graduate students at Stanford University.
Since then, Google has quickly grown into one of the most successful technology companies, with its search engine receiving billions of inquiries every day and its other popular services, such as YouTube and Gmail, attracting comparably big user bases throughout the world. As a result, not only has it dramatically influenced how we consume information on the internet, but it has also elevated Alphabet to the ranks of the most influential organizations in terms of market value due to its ownership of Google LLC.
Who Owns Google? Ownership Structure
Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, has a complex share structure with three classes of shares designed to keep insiders in power but allow all types of shareholders to have a say in crucial decisions.
Institutional investors and the general public predominantly own class A shares; these stockholders have one vote per share and trade on exchanges under the symbol GOOGL.
Class B shares are worth ten votes per share and are only held by Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and other insiders; these shares are not publicly traded.
Alphabet established Class C shares in 2014 via a stock split; they have no voting rights but can be bought and sold like ordinary stocks under the ticker symbol “GOOG.”
According to 2023 data, Alphabet had about 13.01 billion outstanding Class A and Class C combined shares, but the exact numbers for each class are not specified.
Who Owns Google? Top Individual Google Shareholders
Larry Page
Larry Page owns a significant portion of Alphabet, accounting for 3.0% of the company’s outstanding shares and ranking him eighth among the richest persons in the United States in March 2023, with a total net worth of $96.5 billion.
The American internet entrepreneur rose to prominence after co-founding Google with Sergey Brin in 1998, where he served as Chairman until August 2001, when Eric Schmidt took over until his return in April 2011. In July 2015, he was appointed CEO of Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, a position he held until December 4, 2019, before shifting to an executive board member and majority shareholder of Alphabet while staying at the helm of Google.
Along with his success at Google and Alphabet Inc., Page has invested in and served on the boards of pioneering firms like Kitty Hawk, which builds flying cars, and Opener. This displays Page’s enthusiasm for using technology to break down barriers and create new possibilities.
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Sergey Brin
Sergey Brin is well-known for his work in Google, the firm he co-founded. He first met Larry Page while both were pursuing doctorate degrees in computer science at Stanford University. They were both passionate about technological advancement and discovered many mutual interests when discussing technological matters.
After finishing their respective degrees, the two decided to collaborate on an internet search engine, eventually establishing Google, the world’s most popular search engine.
Sergey Brin owns 19 million shares of Alphabet Inc. as of February 18, 2023, giving him nearly 3% of the total stock outstanding and making him one of Alphabet’s largest individual shareholders with an estimated net worth of $83.9 billion, ranking him 9th among the wealthiest people in the United States in 2023. Brin played an active role within Alphabet as president until December 2019, and he continues to do so despite his resignation.
He has also become a significant investor in creative firms such as Planetary Resources and Impossible Foods, which are poised to change how people interact with technology and food, respectively. Aside from that, Sergey donated a portion of his fortune to charitable causes, including disaster relief operations across America in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian in 2018.
Sundar Pichai
Sundar Pichai joined Google in 2004 as Vice President of Product Management, where he worked on major products such as the Google Toolbar, Chrome browser, and Android OS, leading to his promotion to Senior Vice President in 2012 and then CEO of Google in 2015, succeeding Larry Page, who moved into a senior role within Alphabet Inc. Pichai was named CEO of both Alphabet Inc. and Google after the firms were merged in December 2019.
Sundar Pichai, Alphabet Inc’s biggest shareholder after co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, holds 88,693 shares, or 0.01% of all outstanding shares.
Sundar Pichai has been a major element in Google’s development into one of today’s most successful technology businesses. His creative product execution has allowed Google to increase its global reach. Thanks to his expertise in technology and astute business strategy, he has brought several concepts to fruition while stressing customer service.
Furthermore, Pichai is an outspoken advocate for improved access to digital resources on social media sites such as Twitter, frequently tweeting about AI development or technological achievements made by Alphabet companies such as Waymo or DeepMind Technologies.
Under Pichai’s leadership, the company’s revenues have increased by 281%, rising from $74.9 billion in 2015 to a mind-boggling $282.83 billion by 2022 – very impressive given the current market volatility. This meteoric rise has increased Pichai’s net worth into the billions, making him one of the wealthiest people.
Who Owns Google? Top Institutional Google Shareholders
Vanguard Group Inc., BlackRock Inc., T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., and Fidelity Management & Research Company were the biggest Google institutional shareholders as of April 2023.
The Vanguard Group, Inc.
Vanguard has progressively collected over 44 million Alphabet shares across its many products, including the popular Vanguard Communication Services ETF (VOX). The VOX fund primarily invests in communication services companies; GOOGL and GOOG remain two of its major holdings at 11.73% and 10.40%, respectively. Vanguard, which manages over $7.2 trillion globally, principally provides mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) at low rates to help customers reach their financial goals more cost-effectively.
BlackRock Inc.
BlackRock Inc. (BLK) is a multinational asset management firm with assets worth an estimated $10 trillion as of April 26, 2023. The company primarily concentrates on mutual funds and ETFs, including the popular iShares ETF line. According to Fintel, BLK owns 416,003,093 Class A shares, or roughly 7.00% of all existing Class A shares, and 19,224,377 Class C shares, or approximately 6.10% of all outstanding Class C shares. According to CNN Money, among other institutional investors, BLK controls around 7.68% of Alphabet’s shares.
BlackRock’s largest ETF is the iShares Core S&P 500 Index (IVV), which manages $304 billion in assets. Alphabet (GOOGL and GOOG) equities account for two of the top ten holdings, accounting for 1.81% and 1.59% of total Alphabet shares, for a total of 39 million Alphabet shares, thus making BlackRock one of Google’s most notable institutional investors in recent quarters.
BlackRock assists significant technology companies and businesses from all industries in meeting their investment needs through value-oriented investments such as dividends or share repurchases. They have also begun investing in new technologies, such as electric car startups, to diversify the group’s overall exposure away from traditional industries.
As one of Alphabet’s largest shareholders, BlackRock plays a critical role in protecting investor interests by engaging directly with corporate governance structures and seeking board representatives to serve on committees that may affect critical investor choices in the future. It will be interesting to see how their stake % changes over time in response to market fluctuations.
FMR LLC
FMR LLC was created in 1946 and had a 77-year history in the securities and investing industry. They own Fidelity Investments as well as many ETFs and mutual funds such as FDGRX. They are committed to providing great financial solutions and services to people, businesses, institutions, and governments worldwide. FMR LLC owned 13,684,685 Alphabet Inc. class A shares as of April 2023, representing 4.57% of total class A shares outstanding, making them one of Alphabet Inc.’s major institutional shareholders.
The corporation has a sizable investment portfolio, with a more than $1 trillion portfolio and an AUM of over $4.5 trillion. Investing through numerous funds like FDGRX complicates investment portfolios because holdings might differ significantly from one fund to the next. Despite this seeming complexity, the organization has seen consistently strong returns in all market kinds — bullish or bearish — since its investments during repeated economic downturns over the last decade.
Who is Google’s Founder?
Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google. They were Ph.D. students at Stanford University in California when they started working on Google. Google’s founders created a new algorithm for search engines that could assess the relationship between webpages and relied primarily on backlinks.
When was Google established?
Larry Page and Sergey Brin established Google in September 1998. They began working on Google as research students at Stanford University in 1996. Google was officially formed and became a company on September 4, 1998, with Larry Page and Sergey Brin as co-founders.
What is the founder of Google’s net worth?
The founders of Google have a combined net worth of USD 7,600 crores. Google expanded swiftly as a corporation and is currently the world’s most popular search engine. Google has a net worth of $1.163 trillion and is the world’s fourth most valuable firm.
Conclusion
Google LLC is undeniably a powerful corporation that has transformed the global technology economy. It is hardly surprising, then, that it is still owned by a number of individuals and institutions, the most prominent of which is Alphabet Inc., its parent corporation.
This ownership structure allows decision-making power to be distributed among various stakeholders such as Sergey Brin and Larry Page, two of Google’s original co-founders, as well as large corporations such as The Vanguard Group and BlackRock, which have made significant investments in Alphabet and Google LLC, respectively. While no single individual or organization entirely “owns” Google, its different owners can be sure that their investments are helping to fund one of the world’s largest tech corporations.
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Who Owns Google: References
