Who won 51% of Google?

Who won 51% of Google? The simple, surprising answer is: nobody. But the story of who controls it is far more interesting, and it all comes down to a special kind of ‘golden ticket’ designed by the founders.

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is a “publicly traded company.” Think of the entire company as one giant pizza. When it went “public,” it was sliced into hundreds of millions of tiny, individual pieces called “stocks” and sold at a massive market open to the world.

In practice, this means the company’s ownership is spread across the globe. The owners include major institutional investors in Alphabet, like large retirement funds, as well as millions of everyday people. This model of public company ownership vs. private, where no single entity holds a majority, is common for corporations of this scale.

So if millions of people each own a small slice, how does anyone make a decision? This is where the crucial difference between owning the company and running the company comes into play—and where those ‘golden tickets’ completely change the game.

The Real Secret: How Can You Control a Company You Don’t Own?

The real secret behind Google’s power structure isn’t just about who owns the most pieces of the company, but who has the most say in big decisions. There’s a critical difference between owning a share of the profits—what some call equity—and having actual voting power. For a massive company like Google, that difference is everything.

Think of it like a giant family deciding where to go on vacation. In a public company, every share that someone owns typically comes with one vote. When it’s time to make a major choice, like appointing a new CEO, all the shareholders cast their votes. The option with the most votes wins, just like choosing between the beach or the mountains.

Now, imagine if the parents’ votes in that family counted for ten times more than the kids’ votes. They wouldn’t need to be the majority of the family to decide the vacation spot; they would only need to have the majority of the voting power. This is the key to understanding how Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is run.

Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, used this exact strategy. When they made the company public, they created a system that gave their own shares this special, super-charged voting power. But what are these ‘golden tickets’ and how do they work?

What Are Google’s “Super-Voting” Golden Tickets?

Those powerful “golden tickets” are part of a system using different types of shares, often called share classes. Think of it like buying concert tickets: some tickets get you a regular seat, while others give you VIP access. In the world of stocks, not all shares are created equal. Some come with more power than others, which is the key to understanding what are essentially super-voting shares.

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, uses this exact strategy. When the company sells shares to the public on the stock market, it’s mostly selling one type. But the founders held onto a different, more powerful type for themselves. This setup, sometimes known as a dual-class stock structure, creates two tiers of ownership.

The difference between them is stunningly simple but incredibly powerful. It all comes down to voting rights:

• Class A (Regular Shares): These are the shares most people can buy. One share gets you one vote.
• Class B (Founder Shares): These are held by an exclusive group, including the founders. One share gets them ten votes.

With this 10-to-1 advantage, you can see how a small group of people can have their voices amplified to overcome millions of others. They don’t need to own half the company when each of their shares carries the voting weight of ten regular ones. This guarantees they remain in control of the company’s direction.

So, Who Actually Holds These Powerful Shares?

That special class of shares—the ones with ten times the voting power—has always been reserved for a tiny, trusted group. At the heart of that group are the two men who started it all in a garage: Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. While other early executives also hold some of these shares, Page and Brin have long been the primary gatekeepers of this immense control mechanism.

By holding these powerful “founder shares,” Page and Brin have achieved something remarkable. Even though they own a relatively small percentage of the company’s total stock, their combined voting power is over 50%. This is the core secret to who runs Google. When it comes to the big decisions that shape the company’s future, their votes together can overrule all other shareholders combined.

Setting up a system that guarantees you can’t be outvoted, even after selling most of your company to the public, is a deliberate and strategic choice. It wasn’t an accident; it was a plan designed from the very beginning. But it begs an important question: why did they feel they needed this much power?

Why Did Google’s Founders Want This Much Control?

Creating a system where your vote counts for ten times more than someone else’s might sound extreme. For Google’s founders, however, it was a necessary tool to solve one huge problem: protecting their long-term vision from the short-term demands of the stock market.

The stock market often gets impatient. Investors typically want to see steady profits every three months, a rhythm that can clash with big, revolutionary ideas. Projects like developing self-driving cars or building a global mapping system don’t pay off overnight, and the pressure for immediate returns can cause companies to abandon promising but difficult innovations.

Think of it like a chef trying to slow-cook a masterpiece. The restaurant’s owners (the shareholders) might get antsy and demand they serve quick, simple snacks instead to make money now. The founders’ “super-votes” are like the chef’s authority to say, “No, trust me. The main course we’re preparing will be worth the wait.”

This structure gave Page and Brin the freedom to make huge bets on the future without fear of being overruled for a disappointing financial quarter. It let them build for the next decade, not just the next balance sheet. But even with their control locked in, what stops someone from just buying up all the public shares anyway?

Can Someone Just Buy 51% of Google on the Stock Market?

So, can someone just buy a majority of Google shares on the open market? In practice, it’s a financial fantasy. The first roadblock is the staggering price tag. Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, is valued at nearly two trillion dollars. To buy even half of it, you’d need more money than the entire annual economic output of countries like Switzerland or Saudi Arabia.

Even if a billionaire had a trillion dollars ready, the market itself would stop them. The instant you start buying up stock on that massive scale, sellers notice and the price soars. It’s like trying to buy every bottle of water in a desert—the more you want, the more expensive each one becomes, quickly making your goal unreachable.

Ultimately, these public shares aren’t sitting in one big pile. They’re owned by millions of different people and major institutional investors in Alphabet, like retirement funds and investment groups. No single entity holds anywhere near enough to challenge the founders’ control, making their carefully designed system incredibly durable.

The Secret Isn’t Ownership, It’s Control

The question of “who owns Google” often seems like a simple numbers game—a race to 51%. However, the real story reveals a hidden layer of corporate power: control isn’t just about owning the most pieces of the company, but about holding the special “super-votes” that guide its direction.

This insight provides a new lens for understanding the business world. The next time you see a headline about a founder-led company like Meta, Snap, or even Ford, you’ll be able to spot the real story by asking: Is this about ownership, or is it about control? This simple question offers a deeper insight than most people have.

Ultimately, the secret to who controls Google was never about a majority of shares, but a majority of power—the power to decide what comes next.