We are deeply humbled to have seen a small research project develop into a source of knowledge and empowerment for billions—a bet we made as two Stanford students that led to a multitude of other technology bets. We could not have imagined, back in 1998 when we moved our servers from a dorm room to a garage, the journey that would follow. Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies, said Pichai was the natural choice and had become the public face of the search giant after Page gave up day-to-day management.
Google founders step down from top roles
Google’s transformation story embraces change and progress, an effort that may continue to bring financial success and tackle public scrutiny concerning user data privacy. Post-restructuring, the new company has raised mixed reactions from supporters and critics. Some say that it may be setting unrealistic goals in the name of pursuing new horizons. Hence, they don’t exist on stock exchanges and allow the founders and CEOs to control the company’s direction and decision-making. In terms of executive positions, Sergey Brin was Google’s President from the company’s founding date in 1998 until 2019. “With Alphabet now well-established, and Google and the Other Bets operating effectively as independent companies, it’s the natural time to simplify our management structure,” Page and Brin said in a joint statement.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the former Stanford University students who founded Google in a Silicon Valley garage, said Tuesday they are stepping aside as leaders of the internet behemoth they started two decades ago. They’re handing the reins to longtime executive Sundar Pichai, who will take over as CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet, in addition to maintaining his current responsibilities as chief executive of the search giant. Alphabet is the parent company of Google but also has a variety of other companies under its umbrella. It also leverages its web browsing, cloud computing, and mobile operating systems to generate profits.
The founders of Google are the two Ph.D. students from Stanford University in California, namely Larry Page and Sergey Brin. This duo met in 1995 while working on a research project on the World Wide Web (WWW). Within a year after they met, in 1996, they began working on a new search engine called BackRub, which they later renamed to Google. YouTube is a video sharing platform where users around the world stream 694,000 hours of content every minute. Google acquired YouTube in 2006, a little over a year after it began. For example, users must create a Google account to join YouTube.
- Shares can be purchased through a broker-dealer or your online brokerage account.You can also invest in the company indirectly by buying shares of mutual funds and/or ETFs that have Alphabet in their portfolios.
- Some of our “Other Bets” have their own boards with independent members, and outside investors.
- Post-restructuring, the new company has raised mixed reactions from supporters and critics.
- Pichai’s ascension comes as Google and Alphabet face scrutiny from all sides.
- The company is primarily a mutual fund and ETF management company with approximately $9.09 trillion in AUM as of March 2023.
Who Owns Google?
“I used to come home and talk to him a lot about my work day and the challenges I faced,” Regunatha Pichai told Bloomberg, adding that Sundar had a remarkable talent for remembering telephone numbers. Ravpreet is an avid writer, prone to penning compelling content that hits the right chord. A startup enthusiast, Ravpreet has written content about startups for over three years and helped them succeed. You can also find her cooking, making singing videos, or walking on quiet streets in her free time. Thus, we can say since Google was founded in 1998, it has become one of the world’s most influential and widely recognised companies.
How Can I Invest in Alphabet?
Following a short stint at the management consulting firm McKinsey & Co., Pichai joined Google in 2004 as the head of product management and development. He initially worked on the Google Toolbar, which enabled those using the Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox Web browsers to easily access the Google search engine. Over the next few years, he was directly involved in the development of Google’s own browser, Chrome, which was released to the public in 2008. That same year Pichai was named vice president of product development, and he began to take a more-active public role. By 2012 he was a senior vice president, and two years later he was made product chief over both Google and the Android smartphone operating system. Other additions were movies, concert, stock, and news cards based on the users’ location and search history.
Also included was the facility to create calendar events using voice input, for instance, “Make a new appointment for dinner with Steve next Thursday at 7 pm”. Different shareholders and investors own Alphabet as it’s a public-traded company. Google’s co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, hold its Class B shares.
The top three individual owners of the company include Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and L. John Doerr, while the top institutional shareholders are Vanguard, BlackRock, and FMR. This includes people from the executive management team and members of the board of directors. The Class A shares (GOOGL) are the company’s common shares, giving investors voting and ownership rights. Class C shares (GOOG) are held by investors and company employees.
“He’s done a great job at Google even though Google is under tremendous scrutiny,” Bajarin said of Pichai’s performance. “I’m excited about Alphabet and its long term focus on tackling big challenges through technology,” Pichai, 47, said in a statement. “I’m looking forward to continuing to work with Larry and Sergey in our new roles.” Google itself became a subsidiary of Alphabet, with the division looking after products such as Search, Maps, YouTube, Chrome and the Android mobile phone platform. He has evidently used his talent to great effect at Google, which he joined in 2004. Products under his watch include Google’s web browser, Chrome, as well as the Android mobile operating system.
There is no one that we have relied on more since Alphabet was founded, and no better person to lead Google and Alphabet into the future. The announcement comes four years after Google restructured itself under an umbrella company called Alphabet. As part of the 2015 move, Google’s internet businesses, including its search engine and maps app, were separated from more experimental projects like driverless cars. Pichai became CEO of Google, and Page and Brin controlled Alphabet.
Because it is not just a search engine; it is a huge tech company that plays a big role in our online lives. Since its launch, it has not just changed how we find information and use the internet. The company manages a range of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds. The Fidelity Growth Company Fund (FDGRX), which has approximately $65.59 billion in net assets, is a who own google now mutual fund that holds shares of GOOGL. Institutional investors or institutional investment managers with at least $100 million in assets under management (AUM) must file an SEC Form 13F every quarter to disclose their equity holdings.
What is Alphabet, Google’s parent company?
Google was officially launched on 4 September 1998 from their friend’s garage in Menlo Park, California, United States. The company quickly grew and expanded, and by 2004, after beating Yahoo! Google already became the most popular search engine in the world, with users searching on Google 200 million times a day. This means you can invest directly in the company by purchasing its Class A and/or Class C shares. Shares can be purchased through a broker-dealer or your online brokerage account.You can also invest in the company indirectly by buying shares of mutual funds and/or ETFs that have Alphabet in their portfolios. FMR is one of the nation’s largest financial services companies and offers investment management, retirement options, brokerage, financial planning, and wealth management services.
In 2010, Pichai also announced the open-sourcing of the new video codec VP8 by Google and introduced the new video format, WebM. In 2013, Pichai added Android to the list of Google products that he oversaw. The shares owned by individual insider shareholders are those that are held through direct ownership. Shares mentioned in this section do not include shares held indirectly nor shares accessible through stock options. Company insiders must file an SEC Form 4 every time they buy or sell an amount of the company’s stock that is deemed to be material. Pichai’s ascension comes as Google and Alphabet face scrutiny from all sides.
It gives them 10 times more voting rights, even though they own a small percentage of the total shares. Class A shares have only one vote per share, while Class C has none. The ticker GOOGL represents the company’s class A shares and are traded as common stock, with a one-share-one-vote structure.