USA TODAY is exploring the questions you and others ask every day. From “How to change my Gmail password” to “When to post on TikTok” to “How to cancel Hulu”, we’re striving to find answers to the most common questions you ask every day. Head to our Just Curious section to see what else we can answer for you. The Waze app is a free navigation smartphone tool used by drivers internationally. It offers real-time alerts on traffic delays and accidents, enhanced by information from drivers using the app. The name is a play on the math term “googol,” which is the number one followed by 100 zeros.

Though Page and Brin are Silicon Valley royalty, they have been sharply criticized for receding into the background during the most tumultuous time in the company’s history. When leaders from Facebook and Twitter were summoned before Congress last year, Page and Pichai were no-shows. An empty seat with a name reading “Google” sat next to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.

1. One of the world’s biggest asset managers, BlackRock sells the popular line of iShares ETF products.
2. Google shares have also converted to Alphabet stock and retain their ticker symbols as GOOG (Class C shares without voting rights) and GOOGL (Class A common stock) on the NASDAQ stock exchange and other platforms.
3. Creativity and challenge remain as ever-present as before, if not more so, and are increasingly applied to a variety of fields such as machine learning, energy efficiency and transportation.
4. Google was officially launched on 4 September 1998 from their friend’s garage in Menlo Park, California, United States.

It runs alongside Waymo, Calico, and other companies in its diverse portfolio. Learn more about Alphabet, who runs it, and other information in this post. Since we wrote that, hundreds of Phoenix residents are now being driven around in Waymo cars—many without drivers! Wing became the first drone company to make commercial deliveries to consumers in the U.S. And Verily and Calico are doing important work, through a number of great partnerships with other healthcare companies.

How Can I Invest in Alphabet?

Alphabet Inc was created in 2015, after Google reorganised its businesses to make its activities “cleaner and more accountable”. On January 16, 2020, Alphabet became the fourth US company to reach a $1 trillion market value[64] entering the trillion dollar companies club for the first time. As per its 2017 annual report, 86% of Alphabet’s revenues came from performance advertising (through user clicks using AdSense and Google Ads) and brand advertising.[60] Of these, 53% came from its international operations. This translated to a total revenue of US$110,855 million in 2017 and a net income of US$12,662 million. With its spirit to never stop, Google has created several breakthroughs like quantum supremacy, AdWords, Android, self-driving cars, ethical AI, and much more, and has continued redefining our world. The way Google navigates challenges and innovations, it always remains at the forefront of technological advancement, which impacts how we work, connect, and explore the ever-expanding digital landscape.

As Pichai deals with the company’s controversies, he’ll also focus the company on AI technology and making its services more helpful and personalized for consumers. “Think of it as building your own individual Google,” he told CNET in 2016, before making his debut as CEO at the company’s annual developer conference. As if to highlight the growing conflict over Google’s open culture, four former employees said they planned to file charges of unfair labor practices on the same day Brin and Page said they were stepping aside. The former employees, who were fired in November, accused Google of “engaging in protected labor organizing.” Google said the employees were fired for violating data security policies, not organizing.

Top 3 Institutional Shareholders

GOOG represents Alphabet’s class C shares, which have no voting rights. The company also has class B shares, which are held by the founders and other insiders and who own google now which have 10 votes per share. Rebranding gives businesses an image refresh and a competitive edge in an era of dynamic markets. Google underwent it in 2015, creating the Alphabet we now know as its parent company. Its birth has made it possible for its divisions to operate independently. Each remains a part of the company while handling projects beyond the internet search engine, advertising, or making new Google Pixel phones.

It aims to bring internet access to areas with poor connectivity, by floating solar-powered hotspots over regions where building phone masts would be too expensive. And any data the company collects from its sensors must be treated as a public asset. Some other businesses which were previously owned by Google were moved to become subsidiaries of Alphabet.

What is Alphabet, Google’s parent company?

The company is a target of antitrust probes by both federal and state officials, and European regulators. Google is also in the midst of some of its greatest cultural challenges. A year ago, employees walked off the job to protest management’s perceived weakness in handling allegations of sexual misconduct at the search giant. They’ve complained about Google’s contract with the Pentagon to develop artificial intelligence and its proposed work on a search engine for China, known as Project Dragonfly.

It also isolates the risk attached to each subsidiary, where one could fail or face roadblocks without affecting the others. Nothing about how you use Google’s products and services has changed. The Workspace apps, YouTube, and Maps, among others, remain intact. Current and future subsidiaries under Alphabet have more autonomy to chase separate goals and enter new markets. The former became the parent company, and the latter is now a subsidiary of it. Google shares have also converted to Alphabet stock and retain their ticker symbols as GOOG (Class C shares without voting rights) and GOOGL (Class A common stock) on the NASDAQ stock exchange and other platforms.

The company is not conventional and continues to make ambitious bets on new technology, especially with our Alphabet structure. Creativity and challenge remain as ever-present as before, if not more so, and are increasingly applied to a variety of fields such as machine learning, energy efficiency and transportation. Nonetheless, Google’s core service—providing unbiased, accurate, and free access to information—remains at the heart of the company. In addition, he went on to oversee the development of other applications such as Gmail and Google Maps.

Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google, has been put in charge of its parent company Alphabet, after co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced they were stepping down. It is one of the world’s largest investment management companies with about 421 low-cost traditional funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Vanguard is primarily a mutual fund and ETF management company and has about $7.6 trillion in global assets under management (AUM). One includes Google Fiber and Webpass, two services meant to deliver fast internet and phone privileges to you via a physical line. Already, the company has had to pause operations in numerous cities and made massive layoffs.

Speculations are abuzz about low demand and financial setbacks. But innovation is risky, and only time will tell if Alphabet’s moonshot projects succeed. Alphabet is a multinational technology company that Larry Page and Sergey Brin created on October 2, 2015.

Therefore, when Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced the creation of Alphabet Inc., in August 2015, it came as no surprise to industry insiders that Pichai was named CEO of Google, which was reorganized as a subsidiary. In December 2019 he also was named CEO of Alphabet, replacing Page, who stepped down. Google remains the Google you know but falls under Alphabet as a subsidiary and the largest shareholder.

Some of our “Other Bets” have their own boards with independent members, and outside investors. Brin and Page referenced the earlier leadership change in their letter. “We’ve never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think there’s a better way to run the company,” the pair wrote. Acquired by Google in 2014, DeepMind is a UK-based company researching artificial intelligence and machine learning. Larry Page and Sergey Brin own about 14% of Google’s publicly listed shares and 56% of the company’s super-voting stock.

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.

1. 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.
2. Some of our “Other Bets” have their own boards with independent members, and outside investors.
3. Post-restructuring, the new company has raised mixed reactions from supporters and critics.
4. Pichai’s ascension comes as Google and Alphabet face scrutiny from all sides.
5. 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.