GOOGL · Mountain View, California
The Garage / Company file
Alphabet Inc. (Google)
Almost sold for $1 million. The buyer said no. Now facing the biggest antitrust case since Microsoft.
Market quote
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Today
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Symbol
GOOGL
The story / 5 turning points
1996
BackRub: the search engine with an ugly name
Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford in 1995. By 1996 they had built a search engine called BackRub — named after its method of analysing backlinks. It ran on Stanford's servers and consumed so much bandwidth that the university repeatedly asked them to take it down.
1998
The $100,000 cheque for a company that didn't exist
Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote Google a cheque for $100,000 in August 1998 after a brief demo in a Stanford parking lot. There was one problem: Google Inc. didn't exist yet. Page and Brin had to incorporate the company before they could cash it.
1999
They tried to sell Google for $1 million
In 1999, Page and Brin tried to sell Google to Excite CEO George Bell for $1 million. Bell turned them down — the search was too good, it would send users away from Excite's portal too quickly. Bell later called it the worst decision of his career. Excite filed for bankruptcy in 2001. Google became worth more than $2 trillion.
2023
Code red: the ChatGPT war begins
When OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022, Google declared an internal "code red." The company that had invented the transformer architecture — the technology that made ChatGPT possible — had published its research openly and was now scrambling to compete with the system it had inadvertently enabled. Google rushed Bard to market. It made a factual error in its first public demo. The stock dropped $100 billion in a single day. Google's search share fell from 80% to under 70% as users migrated to ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude.
2025
The antitrust ruling that changed everything
In September 2025, a U.S. federal court ruled that Google had illegally maintained its monopoly in search, ordering the company to end exclusive distribution contracts with Apple, device manufacturers, and browser makers. The Apple deal alone had been worth approximately $20 billion per year to keep Google as the default search engine on Safari. The court stopped short of forcing Google to sell Chrome or Android, but the ruling was the most consequential antitrust action against a technology company since the Microsoft case of 1998. Google announced it would appeal. The case is expected to reach the Supreme Court.
The Numbers
market cap
$2.24T (July 2026)
revenue
$342.1B (FY2025)
net income
$85.6B (FY2025)
employees
180,000
ipo year
2004
ipo price
$85
current ceo
Sundar Pichai
revenue forecast
$376.5B (2026 analyst consensus)
Who Owns Alphabet Inc. (Google)
Larry Page & Sergey Brin
Retain >51% voting power via Class B shares
Vanguard Group
Largest institutional holder
BlackRock
Institutional investor
Public float
Remaining shares publicly traded
Frequently Asked Questions
Who founded Alphabet Inc. (Google)?
Alphabet Inc. (Google) was founded by Larry Page, Sergey Brin.
When was Alphabet Inc. (Google) founded?
Alphabet Inc. (Google) was founded in 1998.
Where was Alphabet Inc. (Google) founded?
Alphabet Inc. (Google) was headquartered in Mountain View, California.
Why was Alphabet Inc. (Google) created?
Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford in 1995. By 1996 they had built a search engine called BackRub — named after its method of analysing backlinks. It ran on Stanford's servers and consumed so much bandwidth that the university repeatedly asked them to take it down.
What does Alphabet Inc. (Google) do?
Almost sold for $1 million. The buyer said no. Now facing the biggest antitrust case since Microsoft. Google was almost sold for $1 million. The buyer said no. Now it's fighting the biggest antitrust case in 25 years. The full story of Google and Alphabet.
How did Alphabet Inc. (Google) grow?
In September 2025, a U.S. federal court ruled that Google had illegally maintained its monopoly in search, ordering the company to end exclusive distribution contracts with Apple, device manufacturers, and browser makers. The Apple deal alone had been worth approximately $20 billion per year to keep Google as the default search engine on Safari. The court stopped short of forcing Google to sell Chrome or Android, but the ruling was the most consequential antitrust action against a technology company since the Microsoft case of 1998. Google announced it would appeal. The case is expected to reach the Supreme Court.
Who owns Alphabet Inc. (Google)?
Larry Page & Sergey Brin owns ~11%. Vanguard Group owns ~8.2%. BlackRock owns ~7.0%. Public float owns ~73.8% (Retain >51% voting power via Class B shares)
How much of Alphabet Inc. (Google) does Larry Page & Sergey Brin own?
Larry Page & Sergey Brin owns ~11% (Retain >51% voting power via Class B shares)
When did Alphabet Inc. (Google) go public?
Alphabet Inc. (Google) had its IPO in 2004, with an initial share price of $85.
How many employees does Alphabet Inc. (Google) have?
Alphabet Inc. (Google) has approximately 180,000 employees.
What is Alphabet Inc. (Google)'s revenue?
Alphabet Inc. (Google) generated $342.1B (FY2025) in revenue. Analysts forecast $376.5B (2026 analyst consensus).
What is Alphabet Inc. (Google)'s market cap?
Alphabet Inc. (Google) has a market capitalisation of $2.24T (July 2026).
Who is the CEO of Alphabet Inc. (Google)?
The current CEO of Alphabet Inc. (Google) is Sundar Pichai.
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