Alphabet (GOOGL) AI, Cloud, and Waymo Provide Multi-Layered Growth Optionality
- Finance
ThePostMaster- 0
- 6 minutes read
Sands Capital Management, LLC’s Technology Innovators Fund released its Q4 2025 investor letter for “Technology Innovators Fund”. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The Fund delivered mixed performance during the fourth quarter of 2025, as market returns were increasingly driven by a narrow group of large-cap growth stocks, with the portfolio’s top ten holdings accounting for roughly 59% of assets, while several high-valuation innovation names faced pressure from slowing momentum and investor risk aversion. The fund’s results reflected stock-specific challenges rather than broad macroeconomic shocks, with weaker performance in certain emerging technology holdings offset by strength in select platform and infrastructure businesses. During the quarter, the portfolio declined 6.3% on a quarter-to-date basis, and the fund generated a 14.7% return over the one year, reflecting stock-specific challenges rather than broad macroeconomic shocks, with weaker performance in certain emerging technology holdings offset by strength in select platform and infrastructure businesses. Management emphasized its long-term investment horizon, noting an average annual portfolio turnover of 21%, and stated that many portfolio companies continued to generate solid full-year earnings growth in 2025, supported by durable revenue models tied to artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and digital transformation, even as enthusiasm for speculative growth faded late in the quarter. In addition, please check the Fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2025.
In its fourth-quarter 2025 investor letter, Sands Capital Management, LLC’s Technology Innovators Fund highlighted stocks like Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL). Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is the parent company of Google, generating most of its revenue from digital advertising while expanding into cloud computing and AI. The one-month return of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) was -7.36% while its shares traded between $140.53 and $349.00 over the last 52 weeks. On February 13, 2026, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) stock closed at approximately $305.72 per share, with a market capitalization of about $3.70 trillion.
Sands Capital Technology Innovators Fund stated the following regarding Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) in its Q4 2025 investor letter:
“Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is a global internet company whose principal businesses are Google and YouTube—two of the most visited websites in the world. The company uses this consumer reach to sell targeted advertising, which benefits from the unique value of search intent data. Advertisers can match consumer demand more precisely, helping drive strong returns on their marketing spend. AI is poised to reshape how people search for information online, creating an opportunity to expand the addressable market. Alphabet appears well-positioned to lead this shift. It can leverage its Chrome browser, AI platform Gemini, and the wide reach of its applications to integrate more intelligent and personalized consumer experiences. These could evolve into AI assistants capable of handling complex queries and directly connecting users to products and services. Amid these shifts, Google Cloud is starting to improve its competitive position. Beyond search and cloud, we are also increasingly optimistic that Alphabet can receive credit from the market for its other dominant and emerging businesses. These include YouTube, as well as technologies such as Waymo. Although still early in commercialization, Waymo benefits from Alphabet’s scale and access to data—both critical for training autonomous systems.”
