Just days before the share auction was to begin, Playboy magazine hit the newsstands with an interview with Page and Brin. The IPO was not without moderate controversy.
We do not intend to become one.” Written by co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the letter offers fascinating insight into the founders’ long-term plans, and it foreshadows many of the non-search-related investments the company went on to make as it morphed into the company known today as Alphabet. The IPO was unusual in that shares were sold in an online auction format using a system built by Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, underwriters of the offering.Īlso unusual was that Google took a page from famed investor Warren Buffett’s playbook, publishing “ An Owner’s Manual for Google’s Shareholders,” beginning with the bold statement, “Google is not a conventional company. The company was just five years old at the time of its IPO, and numerous early employees became instant millionaires when shares began trading. Fourteen years later, Google parent company Alphabet’s market cap is just over $766 billion, behind only Apple ($927 billion) and Amazon ($778 billion). The company offered 19,605,052 shares at a price of $85 per share, valuing the company at more than $23 billion. Despite concerns that going public might endanger Google’s famously quirky but intensely focused culture, the company’s initial public offering (IPO) went forward on August 19, 2004.
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