Who Owns Google? History, Shareholders, & Facts

Who is the owner of Google?

The short answer is that Google is a subsidiary of Alphabet (GOOG +2.40%)(GOOGL +2.44%). Alphabet is a publicly traded company that is owned by its shareholders.

For the longer version, Google is actually a broad collection of businesses, which is itself split into two segments: Google Services and Google Cloud.

Google Services includes most of the consumer-facing businesses. It includes the dominant Google Search platform, as well as YouTube, Google Play, Android, Chrome, Gmail, Google Maps, and many others. Google Cloud includes the cloud infrastructure business that competes with Amazon Web Services (AMZN +0.34%) and Microsoft Azure (MSFT -1.44%).

In addition to the Google subsidiaries, Alphabet has another business segment called Other Bets, which includes several early-stage startups the company has acquired over the years. The most well-known example is the Waymo self-driving vehicle startup, but there are several others.

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 +2.40%) 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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.

1. Vanguard Group owns 516,559,609 Class A shares and 416,753,033 Class C shares.
2. BlackRock (BLK +1.25%) owns 430,223,692 Class A shares and 361,542,043 Class C shares.
3. State Street (STT +0.65%) owns 229,954,269 Class A shares and 188,914,125 Class C shares.
4. Fidelity owns 216,384,449 Class A shares and 101,828,085 Class C shares.
5. 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.

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.

1. Open your brokerage account: Log in to your brokerage account where you handle your investments.
2. Search for the stock: Enter the ticker or company name into the search bar to bring up the stock's trading page.
3. Decide how many shares to buy: Consider your investment goals and how much of your portfolio you want to allocate to this stock.
4. 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.
5. Submit your order: Confirm the details and submit your buy order.
6. 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.

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