As is known, Google provides various application services that make daily activities easier such as Gmail, Gdrive, Google Maps, YouTube, and many more.
The variety of services that Google offers makes most of the activity dependent on the company’s products. Who is the owner of Google? Get to know her figure in the following discussion.
A little bit about Google
Google is an American search engine founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. At that time, both were graduate students from Stanford University.
Before it was known as Google as it is now, the giant search engine was named BackRub. Google’s name is a play on the mathematical term “googol,” which refers to the number one followed by 100 zeros. This popular search engine gained its initial popularity in 2004.
Since then, Google has grown to become the most visited website in the world. Based on data as of April 2022, Google managed to attract 89 billion visits.
As the company grows rapidly, Google is venturing into various technology products outside of the search engine. Until now, Google’s various products have dominated the market.
For example, email (Gmail), navigation products (Waze and Maps), cloud computing (Cloud), web browsing (Chrome), video sharing (YouTube), operating systems (Android), cloud storage (Drive), and more.
Despite significant product and service development, there are several Google services that have been discontinued, namely games (Stadia), Play Music, Nexus, Hangouts, and Inbox by Gmail.
Who Owns Google?
According to Business Maverick, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin own 14 percent of the publicly traded company and control 56 percent of the voting stock.
Google went public in 2004 with an initial public offering. Later in 2015, Google was reorganized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.
Sundar Pichai was appointed CEO of Google on October 24, 2015. He replaced Larry Page as CEO of Alphabet. Pichai took over as CEO of Alphabet on December 3, 2019.
According to the same source, until now the highest individual investor Google held Larry Page. He himself has an estimated wealth of $91.1 billion as of October 2022. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Larry is the seventh richest person in the world.
The second-highest individual investor in Google is Sergey Brin with a net worth of $87.2 billion. That makes him the eighth richest person globally.
The highest shareholder Alphabet (Google) in addition to the founders of Google occupied Vanguard Group, Inc., one of the largest investment advisory firms in the US. The firm holds major stakes in many of the world’s top companies, such as Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and many more.
Vanguard Group, Inc. ‘ s stake in Alphabet is $ 22.5 million. That number was followed by Blackrock, Inc. with a stake of 20 million, and T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. with 12.2 million shares. All three fall into the category of Class C shareholders in Alphabet.
Based on the description above, it can be seen that the real owner of Google is still held by Larry Page and Sergey Brin as the initial founders.
Both are also Class B shareholders who are entitled to have 10 votes per share held by the founders of the company.
Through that right, they can retain as much power as possible over future corporate decisions.
This is a list of who owns Google. Hope the above information is useful!