Who Really Owns Google (Alphabet) and Who Controls It

Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL, GOOG) is the parent company of Google. Alphabet also owns some other smaller companies, but Google is the only one that really matters. It is one of the largest companies in the world, earning money predominantly from advertising. So, who ows Alphabet, and who controls it?

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.

Alphabet's Largest Shareholders (Dec 2022)
	Shareholder	Ownership	Voting Power
	Vanguard	7.0%	3.3%
	BlackRock	6.2%	2.8%
	Larry Page	6.1%	26.3%
	Sergey Brin	5.7%	24.9%
	Eric Schmidt	0.6%	4.2%
	Other	74.4%	38.5%
Listed are shareholders holding >5% of any share class or notable in other ways
Source: Multiple SEC filings

In this article, I will dive more into who owns Alphabet and who controls it. I will show you who Alphabet’s largest shareholders are, how many shares and votes they have, and how much their stake is worth.

If you are interested, you can check my other articles about how Google makes money from Android and Google Maps. I also made a deep dive into what companies Alphabet owns and how the whole holding is organized.

Or you can explore who are the largest shareholders in other technology like Apple, Meta (Facebook), Amazon, Microsoft, Tesla, or Zoom.

📃 Who Owns Alphabet (Google)?

Alphabet (Google) is owned by its shareholders. 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%).

The two largest Alphabet (Google) owners are asset management giants Vanguard, which owns a 7.0% share, and BlackRock, with a 6% share.

• Vanguard and BlackRock are the two largest asset managers in the world. Therefore it is hardly surprising they are also among the largest shareholders of Alphabet (Google).
• Despite being the two largest shareholders, Vanguard and BlackRock do not have a large influence on Google. Their voting power pales compared to founders Larry and Sergey, thanks to their super-voting shares.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s founders, are also one of the largest Alphabet owners. Larry Page owns a 6.1% stake, and Sergey Brin owns a 5.7% stake.

• Despite owning together only 11.8% of Alphabet, Larry and Sergey control Alphabet thanks to their super-voting (Class B) shares.
• Larry and Sergey own most of their shares directly, without intermediary holding companies or trusts. Only a small part of Sergey’s shares is owned through two trusts named “SMB Pacific 2021 Charitable Remainder Unitrust I” and “SMB Pacific 2021 Charitable Remainder Unitrust II”.

A sizable owner of Alphabet is also an ex-CEO from Google’s early days, Eric Schmidt, who owns 6.1% of the company.

• Eric Schmidt owns only a small part of his stake directly. Most of it is owned through “The Schmidt Family Living Trust.” Some of the shares are also held through “Schmidt Investments, L.P.”, “The Schmidt Family Foundation” and “The Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fund for Strategic Innovation.”

Google was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The core product was the commercialization of their “PageRank” web ranking algorithm Larry and Sergey developed together at Stanford University during their Ph.D. studies.

Alphabet Inc. is a publicly listed company. Its Class A shares have been publicly traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange since 2004 under the ticker “GOOGL”.

• Later in 2014, the company issued new Class C shares with no voting rights that are traded under the ticker “GOOG”.

Alphabet Inc. is incorporated in the State of Delaware (US), but its headquarters are in Mountain View, California (US).

Alphabet (Google) is kind of a “different” company from most others. It is renowned for its “engineering first” approach. This approach is behind its successes and, in my view, also behind many of its failures to commercialize its technology and innovations. Alphabet also stands out thanks to the voting control the founders Larry and Sergey have over the company.

🎮 Who Controls Alphabet (Google)?

Alphabet’s shareholders with the largest voting power are co-founder Larry Page, who controls 26.3% of all votes, co-founder Sergey Brin who controls 24.9% of the votes, followed by Eric Schmidt (4.2%), Vanguard (3.3%), and BlackRock (2.8%).

The voting power is not equal to ownership. 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.

• Class A: “normal” shares with one vote per share. Publicly traded under ther ticker GOOGL
• Class B: “super-voting” shares with ten(10) votes per share, not traded publicly and owned mainly by founders
• Class C: “non-voting” shares with no vote, only share on equity. Publicly traded under the ticker GOOG. (issued in 2014)

Alphabet is controlled by its two founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who together hold 51.2% of all votes, despite owning “only” 11.8% of all shares. Their voting power is the result of their super-voting Class B shares with ten votes per share.

• Founders Larry and Sergey have a majority of votes without owning the majority of shares.
• Larry and Sergey are no longer actively managing Google and Alphabet. Larry handed over the CEO position of Google in 2015 to Sundar Pichai and became CEO of Alphabet, while Sergey held the title of Alphabet president (whatever that role meant). In 2019 they both exited even those positions, and Sundar became CEO of the whole Alphabet holding.
• That being said, even though Larry and Sergey exited official positions within Alphabet and we do not see their faces in the news or congress hearings, with 51.2% voting power, they still firmly hold the reins of Alphabet’s and Google and sit on Alphabet’s Board of Directors.

Alphabet’s shareholder with the third-largest voting power is former CEO Eric Schmidt, who controls 4.2% of votes while owning “only” 0.6% of all shares. His voting power is also the result of super-voting shares he and some other shareholders own.

Other Alphabet insiders that have influence over the Company are CEO Sundar Pichai, chairman of the board John L. Hennessy, and other board members and executives. However, because Larry and Sergey have the majority of votes, the influence of insiders is limited.

• Alphabet’s board has 11 members who are reelected annually.
• Nobody from the board of directors or executive officers holds more than 0.05% of Alphabet’s shares, except for founders Larry and Sergey.

🗳️ Breakdown of Alphabet’s Outstanding Shares and Votes by Top Shareholders

Alphabet Inc. had a total of 12,849 million outstanding shares as of December 2022. The following table shows how many shares each Alphabet’s large shareholder holds.

Alphabet's Outstanding Shares by Shareholder
In millions of shares as of December 2022
	Shareholder	Class A	Class B	Class C	Total	% Share
	Vanguard	482	-	423	905	7.0%
	BlackRock	416	-	384	800	6.2%
	Larry Page	-	389	390	779	6.1%
	Sergey Brin	-	369	370	739	5.7%
	Eric Schmidt	7	61	4	72	0.6%
	Other	5,059	64	4,431	9,554	74.4%
	Total (# millions)	5,964	883	6,002	12,849	100.0%
Listed are shareholders holding >5% of any share class or notable in other ways
Source: Multiple SEC filings

There were 14,793 million votes distributed among shareholders of Alphabet Inc.. The table below shows the total number of votes for each large shareholder.

Alphabet's Vote Control by Shareholder
In millions of votes as of December 2022
	Shareholder	Class A	Class B	Total	% Share
	Larry Page	-	3,891	3,891	26.3%
	Sergey Brin	-	3,687	3,687	24.9%
	Eric Schmidt	7	609	616	4.2%
	Vanguard	482	-	482	3.3%
	BlackRock	416	-	416	2.8%
	Other	5,059	642	5,701	38.5%
	Total (# millions)	5,964	8,829	14,793	100.0%
Listed are shareholders holding >5% of any share class or notable in other ways
Source: Multiple SEC filings

Owning class B shares is the key to Larry and Sergey’s control of Alphabet (Google). Their 10x voting power allows founders to call the shots.

💵 Breakdown of Alphabet’s Market Value by Shareholder

The following table summarizes how much is each shareholder’s stake in Alphabet Inc. worth.

However, keep in mind that a stake in Alphabet could be just one part of their portfolio, and their total worth could be bigger, thanks to other investments. It could also be lower if they have debts.

Alphabet's Market Value by Shareholder
Market value in billions $ as of December 2022
	Shareholder	Class A	Class B	Class C	Total	% Share
	Vanguard	$42.6	-	$37.5	$80.1	7.0%
	BlackRock	$36.7	-	$34.1	$70.8	6.2%
	Larry Page	-	$34.3	$34.6	$69.0	6.1%
	Sergey Brin	-	$32.5	$32.8	$65.4	5.7%
	Eric Schmidt	$0.6	$5.4	$0.4	$6.3	0.6%
	Other	$446.3	$5.7	$393.1	$845.1	74.4%
	Total ($ billions)	$526.2	$77.9	$532.6	$1,136.7	100.0%
Listed are shareholders holding >5% of any share class or notable in other ways
Source: Multiple SEC filings

Let’s now look at each Alphabet shareholder individually.

📒 Who Are Alphabet’s (Google’s) Largest Shareholders?

Let’s now go through the list of the largest shareholders of Alphabet Inc. one by one and look at who they are, how many shares they own, what is their voting power, and how much is their stake in Alphabet worth.

#1 Vanguard (7.0%)

Vanguard is the largest shareholder of Alphabet, owning 7.0% of its shares. However, because other shareholders hold super-voting shares, Vanguard’s voting power is only 3.3%. As of December 2022, the market value of Vanguard’s stake in Alphabet was $80.1 billion.

Vanguard owned 905 million shares in Alphabet and controlled 482 million shareholder votes as of December 2022.

Vanguard (The Vanguard Group) is one of the largest asset managers in the world. It manages other people’s money through its mutual funds and exchange-traded funds and also offers other related investing and financial planning services.

Vanguard differs from other large asset managers by having no actual “owner .” Officially Vanguard says that its investors own it since its funds own it, and Vanguard fund investors own those funds.

However, the actual decision power is in the hands of Vanguard’s insiders since the ownership is diluted over millions of investors worldwide.

Vanguard has significant influence over the largest public companies. Thanks to its size, Vanguard usually belongs to the largest shareholders in those companies and has considerable power at their shareholder meetings. This is especially true if ownership is diluted.

• Several terms were coined to describe this issue. Some call it asset manager capitalism, and popular is also the power of twelve. Financial Times even put together who exactly those twelve people might be.
• Evidence shows that big asset managers usually vote together with management.

#2 BlackRock (6.2%)

BlackRock is the second-largest shareholder of Alphabet, owning 6.2% of its shares. However, because other shareholders hold super-voting shares, BlackRock’s voting power is only 2.8%. As of December 2022, the market value of BlackRock’s stake in Alphabet was $70.8 billion.

BlackRock owned 800 million shares in Alphabet and controlled 416 million shareholder votes as of December 2022.

BlackRock, Inc. is the world’s largest asset manager, with assets under management of $10 trillion. BlackRock is not only an asset manager, but it also provides other asset managers and corporations with its Aladdin portfolio management software.

BlackRock is a publicly traded company, and its largest shareholders are its competitors, including BlackRock itself. Not directly but through their passive and active funds. The largest shareholder is Vanguard.

A similar situation is also true in the opposite direction because BlackRock is a significant shareholder in many of its publicly traded competitors and other large institutions, making the whole thing even more eyebrow-raising.

This circular ownership between Vanguard, BlackRock, and other large asset managers, amplifies the issue often raised about the power of these large asset managers over public companies since they usually belong to the most significant shareholders with large voting power.

• In the case of Blackrock, this influence is personified in the form of its CEO Larry Fink, who is a powerful figure with close ties to the FED and US government.

• Adding to these concerns is evidence that BlackRock and other asset managers usually vote in favor of management proposals.

#3 Larry Page (6.1%)

Larry Page is the third-largest shareholder of Alphabet, owning 6.1% of its shares. However, Larry Page controls 26.3% of all votes thanks to owning super-voting shares. As of December 2022, the market value of Larry Page’s stake in Alphabet was $69.0 billion.

Larry Page owned 779 million shares in Alphabet and controlled 3,891 million shareholder votes as of December 2022.

Larry Page founded Google in 1998 together with its co-founder SergeyBrin. The core product was the commercialization of their “PageRank” web ranking algorithm Larry and Sergey developed together at Stanford University during their Ph.D. studies.

Larry does not have any active management role within Google or Alphabet anymore. However, he still has a significant influence on it as a member of Alphabet’s Board of Directors and as a controlling shareholder of Alphabet together with Sergey Brin.

Besides its investment in Google, Larry also invested in flying car startups Kitty Hawk and Opener.

Larry was CEO of Google for the first time from 1998 until 2001 and was the leading visionary behind Google’s success. He left that CEO position as investors pressured him to leave the rains to somebody with more experience. Larry’s sometimes unorthodox moves, like firing all the product managers in 2001, understandably scared them off.

In the meantime, when Eric Schmidt became CEO, Larry focused, for example, on Android, which he helped build into a dominant mobile operating system in just a few years since its acquisition in 2005.

In 2011 with much more experience, Larry became the CEO of Google again. During this time, Google entered a few-year period full of bold acquisitions and innovations, some entirely unrelated to Google’s core business.

• For example, it was when Google introduced Google Glass, Chromebook, and Google+. Google also continued to invest in self-driving cars and AI generally. Notable acquisitions were robotics company Boston Dynamics and Nest. Google also founded Calico, which focused on aging and age-related diseases.
• However, despite the impressive focus on these “Big Bet” investments in innovations, looking back, many of those projects ended up without any tangible business result to show for it. Not so much because they failed in the technology part, but mainly because Google failed to create a sustainable business out of them.

In 2015 Larry Page handed over Google’s CEO position to Sundar Pichai and became CEO of the new holding company Alphabet Inc., which was set up as an owner of Google. Some other former Google projects were transformed to separate companies under Alphabet too.

Since 2015 both Larry and Sergey limited their public appearances outside of internal Google meetings, and in 2019 they announced that they were stepping down even from Alphabet positions. Since then, they virtually became invisible.

#4 Sergey Brin (5.7%)

Sergey Brin owns 5.7% of Alphabet’s shares. 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.

Sergey Brin owned 739 million shares in Alphabet and controlled 3,687 million shareholder votes as of December 2022.

Sergey Brin cofounded Google with Larry Page in 1998. Thanks to his stake in Alphabet Inc., he is one of the world’s wealthiest people.

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.

He was born in Moscow, but his family emigrated to the US when he was six years old. He met with Larry Page at Standford when he needed help with math on its PageRank algorithm. Sergey’s extroversion balanced the lack of it in Larry’s case.

Sergey held different positions within Google, either as a “President” or “Head of Google X.” Google X represented many of Google’s innovative moonshot projects, and Brinn was involved in several of them. He worked on self-driving cars and also on the Google Glass project. Google Glass product no longer exists, but for a while, it was hard to find a picture of Brin without it.

Besides Alphabet, Sergey Brin is an investor in “Lighter Than Air Research,” which is a startup that wants to build building electric airships.

#5 Eric Schmidt (0.6%)

Eric Schmidt owns 0.6% of Alphabet’s 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.

Eric Schmidt owned 72 million shares in Alphabet and controlled 616 million shareholder votes as of December 2022.

Eric Shmidt was CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011. After that, he served as an executive chairman of Google and Alphabet Inc. Equity awards during his time at Google made him a billionaire. He still holds a sizable stake in Alphabet Inc.

Schmidt currently holds no management positions at Google or Alphabet. Besides Alphabet Inc., he, for example, invested in D.E.Shaw&Co. investment management firm.

💸 Can Larry or Sergey Sell Their Alphabet’s Super-voting Shares to Somebody Else?

They can, and they are already slowly doing that. 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. In case original holders sell them, stocks automatically convert to ordinary Class A shares with one vote per share.

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. In that case, Class B shares will keep their super-voting power. For example, Lary and Sergey can buy B shares from Erik.

So this means there will be no new Class B shares holders.

⚰️ What If Some of Google’s Founders Die? Who Will Be in Control of Alphabet?

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.

If founders make some provision beforehand, their voting rights can be transferred in case of their death to other class B shareholders. If they do it, conversion to ordinary shares will not happen immediately, but after nine months.

♾️ Will Larry and Sergey Stay in Control of Alphabet for Their Whole Lifetime?

Currently, the two founders of Google hold 51.2% of voting rights, a drop from the 55% control they had in 2014. Does this mean that as founders liquidate part of their holdings each year, their share will decrease below 50%?

Not necessarily, as is apparent from the last couple of years when Larry and Sergey are still selling shares, but their voting power is stuck slightly above 50%. This is possible thanks to Alphabet Inc. buying back a massive amount of its own shares each year.

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. Share buybacks decrease the total number of Alphabet’s outstanding shares and allow shareholders, including Larry and Sergey, to sell some shares and keep the same voting power.

But, you might understandably ask, wait a minute, founders also own class C shares without voting rights. Why don’t they sell only those shares? This way, they can liquidate up to 50% of their shares (all class C shares) without decreasing their voting power at all.

Well, this is not allowed, thanks to an agreement that Larry, Sergey, and Erik made during the introduction of the C-class shares.

• Other investors were obviously not comfortable with this when C shares were proposed, so the agreement was that if at any moment Larry and Sergey owned more B shares than C shares, those B shares would automatically convert to A shares (with just one vote). This provision will ensure that if founders want to liquidate part of their holdings, they will have to decrease also their voting power.

Even if Larry and Sergey need to sell a large number of stocks and their voting power falls below 50%, they still will have virtual control since it is probable they will readily find a few shareholders that will support their proposal.

Ownership of the rest of the shareholders is quite fragmented, and let’s not forget that their former CEO, Erik Schmidt, also controls another 4% of votes.

Moreover, if Larry’s and Sergey’s combined share of votes falls below 34%, they are allowed to start selling C shares only. This provision will enable them to keep their share at the 34% level for a very long time unless they find some new, ridiculously expensive hobby requiring liquidating all of Alphabet’s stocks.

We probably need to accept that Larry and Sergey will keep having control over Alphabet for their lifetime. Since Alphabet is also funding longevity research, this can be a really long lifetime.

💭 Do The Calls For Equal Voting Rights Make Sense?

Some shareholders do not like the super-voting power Google founders have over Alphabet, and they very often call for introducing equal voting rights for all stock classes.

Although somebody might see it as a “fair” proposal, to me, it sounds like an incredibly ridiculous demand that goes against fairness and common sense. Why do I think so? Larry and Sergey negotiated the deal with the investors back then. They agreed that they would take investors’ money, but they wanted to keep control of the company. And those investors, in the end, agreed to this.

We might argue that it is unnatural and that there is data showing that companies with this strange super-voting share underperform their peers. But none of that matters today. Investors made a deal with the founders and agreed to their super-voting status. So they need to accept it.

And even if somebody became an investor later, he knew in advance that this was a deal and that if they bought the stocks, this is what they are getting. It simply does not make sense to come years later, crying that it is not fair. It was no secret, and Alphabet is quite clear about that in their annual reports.

“Our certificate of incorporation provides for a tri-class capital stock structure. As a result of this structure, Larry and Sergey have significant influence over all matters requiring stockholder approval. This concentrated control could discourage others from initiating any potential merger, takeover, or other change of control transaction that other stockholders may view as beneficial.”

— Excerpt from Alphabet’s 2021 Annual Report (10-K)

There might be a reasonable demand for stripping Alphabet’s founders of their super-voting rights if the investors can prove that founders misuse their voting power. If they would make decisions that have value for them personally but not for the other investors.

And I am not talking about obvious illegal things like channeling money from Google to other companies under the founder’s control. That is totally out of the line. The problem might also be if founders use Alphabet as a playground for their pet projects, which has no financial value for other shareholders.

Some of Alphabet’s “Other Bets” might seem like these kinds of pet projects. However, founders might have an excellent counter-argument. Their very old “pet” projects like Google, Android, or Chrome are earning billions of dollars every year, and nobody is complaining about that.

To sum up, we need to accept Alphabet Inc as it is. Be aware of the founders’ super-voting powers and the fact that it is not going away anytime soon.

📅 Alphabet (Google)’s History Timeline

These are selected events from Alphabet’s history:

• 1998: Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Larry became the first CEO.
• 2001: Larry Page handed over the CEO position to Eric Schmidt, reportedly after pressure from investors who wanted to see somebody with more experience as CEO.
• 2004: Google’s executed its initial public offering (IPO) on NASDAQ
• 2011: Larry Page became the CEO again, which started a few-year period full of bold acquisitions and innovations.
• 2015: Larry Page handed over the CEO position to Sundar Pichai. Larry became CEO of the new holding company, Alphabet Inc. After this, both Larry and Sergey limited their public appearances.
• 2019: Larry and Sergey announced that they were stepping down from Alphabet and became virtually invisible after that. They still are Alphabet’s board members and controlling shareholders.

📚 Recommended Articles & Other Resources

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Other Resources

• Alphabet’s Annual Financials Statements (K-10)
• Alphabet’s Proxy Statement
• Alphabet’s Certificate of Incorporation

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