Who Owns Google? History, Shareholders, & Facts

By Matthew Frankel, CFP – Updated Oct 15, 2025 at 1:16 PM | Fact-checked by Margo Winton Parodi

Key Points

Alphabet Inc. is the parent company of Google and publicly traded under NASDAQ:GOOGL and GOOG.
Top individual shareholders include co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin; top institutional holders are Vanguard and BlackRock.
Invest in Alphabet via a brokerage account, choosing between Class A (GOOGL) shares with voting rights and Class C (GOOG) shares without.

Google is, by far, the most widely used search engine in the world. It is also the parent company of some of the most popular tools and platforms worldwide, including YouTube, Gmail, and the Android mobile operating system.

In this article, we'll dive into the ownership structure of Google, its largest investors, and how you can put your money to work in Google as an investor.

NASDAQ: GOOGL

Alphabet

Today's Change

(0.91%) $2.29

Current Price

$253.98

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$3044B

Day's Range

$251.88 - $255.04

52wk Range

$140.53 - $257.33

Volume

436K

Avg Vol

34M

Gross Margin

58.92%

Dividend Yield

0.00%

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Who are the largest shareholders?

As of October 2025, there were about 11.25 billion outstanding shares of Alphabet stock. Here is a rundown of the largest (known) individual and institutional shareholders.

Individuals

Before we dive into the top individual shareholders of Alphabet stock, it's important to mention that there are some limitations. Unless someone owns more than 5% of a certain class of a company’s stock or they serve as a company executive or board member, there is no requirement for them to disclose their investment to the public.

We also don't have public information about the Class C share holdings (GOOG +0.97%) of any of these individuals, if any, since they don't come with voting rights.

With that in mind, here are the five largest individual shareholders listed on Alphabet's most recent proxy filing.

Larry Page owns 389,051,160 shares of Alphabet, representing about a 3.5% stake in the business. Page co-founded Google and formerly served as the company's CEO.
Sergey Brin owns 362,766,628 shares of the company, representing a 3.2% stake in the business. Brin co-founded Google with Page and formerly served as the company's president.
Eric Schmidt owns 56,921,959 shares, a 0.05% stake in the business. Schmidt served as CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011 and as the executive chairman until 2017.
L. John Doerr owns 23,290,225 shares, a 0.2% stake in Alphabet. Doerr is a venture capitalist who was one of the early investors in Google.
K. Ram Shriram owns 1,890,174 shares, a 0.016% stake. Shriram was a founding board member and was one of the first investors in Google.

Institutional investors

Most top institutional investors of any publicly traded company (especially larger ones) are companies that offer index funds and have to own enough shares to represent the stock's position in the index. And that's the case for each of the five largest institutions that owned Alphabet stock as of late 2025.

Vanguard Group owns 516,559,609 Class A shares and 416,753,033 Class C shares.
BlackRock (BLK -0.57%) owns 430,223,692 Class A shares and 361,542,043 Class C shares.
State Street (STT +0.98%) owns 229,954,269 Class A shares and 188,914,125 Class C shares.
Fidelity owns 216,384,449 Class A shares and 101,828,085 Class C shares.
Geode Capital Management owns 141,615,284 Class A shares and 107,760,033 Class C shares. Geode's main function is to act as a manager to Fidelity index funds.

Who is on the board of directors for Google?

Alphabet has a board of directors with 10 members.

Data source: Alphabet
Name	Role	Director Since
Larry Page	Co-founder	1998
Sergey Brin	Co-founder	1998
Sundar Pichai	Chief Executive Officer, Alphabet and Google	2017
Frances Arnold	Independent Director	2019
John L. Hennessy	Chair	2004
R. Martin "Marty" Chávez	Independent Director	2022
L. John Doerr	Independent Director	1999
Roger W. Ferguson Jr.	Independent Director	2016
K. Ram Shriram	Independent Director	1998
Robin L. Washington	Independent Director	2019

How to invest in Google

Google (Alphabet) is a publicly traded company with shares listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, so, anyone with a brokerage account can invest in the company by following these steps.

Open your brokerage account: Log in to your brokerage account where you handle your investments.
Search for the stock: Enter the ticker or company name into the search bar to bring up the stock's trading page.
Decide how many shares to buy: Consider your investment goals and how much of your portfolio you want to allocate to this stock.
Select order type: Choose between a market order to buy at the current price or a limit order to specify the maximum price you're willing to pay.
Submit your order: Confirm the details and submit your buy order.
Review your purchase: Check your portfolio to ensure your order was filled as expected and adjust your investment strategy accordingly.

It's worth noting that there are three different classes of Alphabet stock (Class A, Class B, and Class C). Class A and C shares are publicly traded under the symbols GOOGL and GOOG, respectively. Class B shares are not publicly traded and are owned by company insiders. The biggest difference between the two publicly available share classes is that Class A (GOOGL) shares have company voting rights, while Class C (GOOG) shares don't.

For most individuals, the ability to vote in company elections isn't an issue. And that's especially true here since co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin hold a voting majority due to their super-voting Class B shares. GOOGL shares trade for a tiny premium to their GOOG counterparts, but all three share classes represent the exact same economic interest in the business.

FAQs

About the Author

Matt Frankel, CFP, is a contributing Motley Fool stock market analyst and personal finance expert covering financial stocks, REITs, SPACs, and personal finance. Prior to The Motley Fool, Matt taught high school and college mathematics. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of South Carolina, a master’s degree in mathematics from Nova Southeastern University, and a graduate certificate in financial planning from Florida State University. He won a SABEW award for coverage of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. He is also regularly interviewed by Cheddar, The National Desk, and other TV networks and publications for his financial, stock market, and investing expertise.

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@MattFrankelCFP

Matt Frankel has positions in Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool recommends BlackRock and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.