Alphabet Inc. delivered strong earnings on Wednesday, marking another highlight in its remarkable surge since early 2023. Over that period, the tech giant has gained over $1 trillion in market value and delivered a 120% return to shareholders. The rally has also propelled CEO Sundar Pichai into the Billionaire Ranks.
As Alphabet’s stock nears record highs, CEO Sundar Pichai, 53, has reached a net worth of $1.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Ranks Index. This is a rare milestone for a non-founder CEO, particularly in the tech world where many fortunes—like those of Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang—stem from founding stakes.
Though Pichai wasn’t part of Alphabet’s founding in 1998, he became its longest-serving CEO this month. In August, he will mark a decade at the company’s helm.
A spokesperson for the Mountain View–based firm declined to comment on Pichai’s wealth.
Sundar Pichai was born into a middle-class family and raised in a modest two-room apartment in Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India. His family didn’t own a car, and they got their first telephone when he was 12. In 1993, when Pichai received a scholarship to attend Stanford University, his family spent over $1,000—more than his father’s annual income—just to buy him a plane ticket to the U.S.
Pichai joined Google in 2004 and steadily climbed the corporate ladder. He played key roles in developing the Chrome browser and later led the Android division, before being named CEO in 2015.
That same year, Google underwent a major restructuring, becoming a subsidiary of the newly formed parent company, Alphabet, as it began shifting greater focus to areas beyond its core search business. In 2019, Pichai expanded his leadership role, taking over as CEO of Alphabet as well.
“One of my first moves as CEO was to shift the company’s focus toward AI,” Pichai said in an interview with Bloomberg last October.
Google’s push into artificial intelligence began in earnest with its $400 million acquisition of London-based DeepMind in 2014. Under Pichai’s leadership, that investment has grown exponentially—Alphabet spent roughly $50 billion last year alone on AI-related initiatives, including energy infrastructure, semiconductor development, and data center expansion. The company has also remained active on the acquisition front, most recently spending $2.4 billion to acquire talent and licensing rights from coding startup Windsurf earlier this month.
Alphabet shares climbed as much as 4.1% on Thursday following a strong quarterly earnings report that surpassed Wall Street expectations. The company also raised its 2025 capital expenditure forecast by $10 billion, bringing it to $85 billion, and reported a 16% increase in research and development spending.
“Our investments in AI infrastructure are essential to keeping up with growing demand from our cloud customers,” Pichai told analysts during a call after the second-quarter results were released on Wednesday.
Sundar Pichai’s Financial Moves
Sundar Pichai owns a 0.02% economic stake in Alphabet, valued at around $440 million, with the majority of his wealth held in cash. Over the past decade, he has sold more than $650 million worth of company stock.
Those stock sales have come at a cost—Sundar Pichai missed out on over $1 billion in potential gains. According to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Ranks Index, if he had held onto all his shares, their current value would exceed $2.5 billion.
While it’s rare for a non-founder CEO to amass a billion-dollar fortune, Sundar Pichai isn’t the first at Alphabet to do so. His predecessor, Eric Schmidt, who led the company from 2001 to 2011, has an estimated net worth of $36.6 billion—much of it still tied up in Alphabet stock. Schmidt played a pivotal role in Google’s 2004 IPO and oversaw the launch of key products like YouTube and Google Maps.
Alphabet’s co-founders remain far wealthier by comparison. Larry Page, 52, and Sergey Brin, 51, have estimated net worths of $171.2 billion and $160.4 billion, respectively, placing them among the seven richest individuals in the world.
As for Sundar Pichai , one area where he’s choosing to invest is professional cricket. A devoted fan of the game, he recently joined a group of tech executives who spent $182 million to acquire a 49% stake in London Spirit—a four-year-old team in the up-and-coming British cricket league.
