For decades, Berkshire Hathaway‘s now-retired CEO, Warren Buffett, was often viewed as one of the greatest investment minds of our generation. He could find value hiding in plain sight and was responsible for overseeing a nearly 6,100,000% return in Berkshire’s Class A shares (BRKA) under his watch.
But there’s a new sheriff in town, and its name is Alphabet (GOOGL +2.12%)(GOOG +2.20%).
Image source: Getty Images.
Alphabet is much more than just ads and AI
When most investors think about Alphabet, internet search engine Google probably comes to mind. Google holds a virtual monopoly in internet search traffic, with an approximate 90% global share as of March 2026.
It’s also the parent company of streaming platform YouTube, the second-most-visited social site on the planet behind (drum roll) Google. The billions of internet search queries and YouTube views it garners affords Alphabet substantial ad pricing power.
Today’s Change
(2.12%) $7.03
Current Price
$339.32
Key Data Points
Market Cap
$4.1T
Day’s Range
$335.16 – $339.81
52wk Range
$147.84 – $349.00
Volume
3.3K
Avg Vol
32M
Gross Margin
59.68%
Dividend Yield
0.25%
Investors view Alphabet as a key player in cloud infrastructure services and the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, too. Google Cloud is the world’s No. 3 cloud infrastructure service platform by total spend. The integration of generative AI solutions and large language model (LLM) capabilities into Google Cloud accelerated its sales growth to a scorching-hot 48% in the fourth quarter.
But Alphabet is also a magnificent investment company. Although not every public and private investment made by Alphabet has turned into a diamond, quite a few have been absolute gems.
Image source: Getty Images.
Alphabet’s investing prowess might be unmatched
The majority of Alphabet’s investments in the public and private arena are with companies it’s collaborating with. In other words, it’s a strategic investor whose portfolio can grow in lockstep with its own operations.
Arguably, the crown jewel of Alphabet’s investment portfolio is the roughly $900 million investment made in privately held SpaceX in 2015. SpaceX confidentially filed for an initial public offering on April 1 and is seeking a valuation of $1.75 trillion to $2 trillion. Based on a regulatory filing that listed Alphabet as having a 6.11% stake in SpaceX, as of the end of 2025, its position could be worth $107 billion to $122 billion. We’re talking about a $106 billion to $121 billion windfall and an increase of 19,400% to 22,200% from its initial investment over 11 years.
Alphabet’s investment team also put capital to work early in LLM giant, Anthropic. In October 2023, Google invested $2 billion in the developer of the Claude LLMs. In January 2025, Google agreed to an additional $1 billion investment in Anthropic.
Altogether, more than $3 billion has been invested in this AI start-up over the last three years, with Alphabet holding approximately a 14% stake in Anthropic. Recently, Anthropic has received venture capital offers valuing the business at $800 billion. This means Google’s initial investment of more than $3 billion may be worth $112 billion (a return of more than 3,000%!).
Today’s Change
(5.81%) $4.65
Current Price
$84.66
Key Data Points
Market Cap
$25B
Day’s Range
$82.74 – $87.78
52wk Range
$22.07 – $129.89
Volume
2.3K
Avg Vol
15M
Gross Margin
-14399.31%
Alphabet’s public portfolio is no slouch, either. Its investment team purchased over 8.9 million shares of satellite-based cellular broadband services provider AST SpaceMobile (ASTS +5.81%) in the March-ended quarter of 2025. Though we don’t know the exact cost basis of Alphabet’s position, AST SpaceMobile stock has skyrocketed from around $25 per share in the first quarter of 2025 to a close of $85.53 on April 17 (a likely gain of well over 200%).
Suffice it to say, investors would be wise to pay close attention to which public and private companies Alphabet is putting its capital to work in.
