GOOGLAlphabet Inc.
Industry Megacap tech Updated 28 Sep 2026 Price 23 Oct 2026
If management hits its targets, one share in 12 months
$320 → $356
What the podcasts say
12 bullish · 2 bearish · 12 speakers · 9 showsWhat investors said about this company on the podcasts we transcribe, newest first. Bullish means the speaker expects the stock to do well, bearish means they expect it to do badly.
- Bearish
- Bullish
- Bullish
- Bearish
- Bullish
- Bullish
- Bullish
- Bullish
Promises vs. what happened
9 claims · 6 decksEvery target management put in a slide deck, and whether they hit it, missed it, or quietly dropped it.
| Promise | Made in | What happened | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud run-rate $70B+, Q4 '25 | Q4 '25 | $99B a quarter later | Held |
| 2025 capex $91-93B | Q3 '25 call | $91.4B | Held |
| Cloud backlog $460B+ | Q1 '26 | $514B; half due in 24 months | Open |
| 2026 capex $195-205B | Q2 '26 call | H1 $80.6B; reports Feb '27 | Open |
| 2027 capex significantly higher | Q1 '26 call | no number yet | Open |
| Half the backlog to revenue in 24 months | Q1 '26 call | checkable from 2028 | Open |
| TPU revenue mostly in 2027 | Q1 '26 call | deliveries began Q2 '26 | Open |
| 2025 capex ~$75B | Q4 '24 call | $91.4B, +22% | Missed |
| 2026 capex $175-185B | Q4 '25 call | raised twice, to $195-205B | Missed |
What they’re pitching
the headline page, deck by deckThe headline from each quarterly results deck over two years, so you can see what they want you to focus on, and when it changes.
'25Q2
'25Q3
'25Q4
'25Q1
'26Q2
'26
CloudPage one since Q4 '25
SearchPage one since Q4 '25
GeminiPage one since Q2 '26
TokensPage one since Q4 '25
SubscriptionsOff page one Q2 '26
CapexFirst seen Q1 '25
MilestonesPage one since Q4 '25
on the headline page further in the deck not in the deck▲ onto page one▼ off page one● first mentionTap a mark for the quote.
Google Cloud growth and backlog
“Google Cloud Revenues and Operating Income in Millions, except Percentages; unaudited”
Deck First Quarter 2025 — Earnings Slides · p. 7 ·
Google Cloud growth and backlog
“Google Cloud Revenues and Operating Income in Millions, except Percentages; unaudited”
Deck Second Quarter 2025 — Earnings Slides · p. 7 ·
Google Cloud growth and backlog
“Google Cloud Revenues and Operating Income in Millions, except Percentages; unaudited”
Deck Third Quarter 2025 — Earnings Slides · p. 7 ·
Google Cloud growth and backlog
“$70B+ annualized revenue run-rate;”
Deck Fourth Quarter 2025 — Earnings Slides · p. 3 ·
Google Cloud growth and backlog
“Q1 Y/Y Cloud revenue growth, $460B+ backlog, Gemini Enterprise paid”
Deck First Quarter 2026 — Earnings Slides · p. 3 ·
Google Cloud growth and backlog
“Q2 Y/Y revenue growth; $514B backlog”
Deck Second Quarter 2026 — Earnings Slides · p. 4 ·
Search revenue growth
“Google Services Revenues and Operating Income in Millions, except Percentages; unaudited”
Deck First Quarter 2025 — Earnings Slides · p. 6 ·
Search revenue growth
“Google Services Revenues and Operating Income in Millions, except Percentages; unaudited”
Deck Second Quarter 2025 — Earnings Slides · p. 6 ·
Search revenue growth
“Google Services Revenues and Operating Income in Millions, except Percentages; unaudited”
Deck Third Quarter 2025 — Earnings Slides · p. 6 ·
Search revenue growth
“+17% y/y revenue growth in Search”
Deck Fourth Quarter 2025 — Earnings Slides · p. 3 ·
Search revenue growth
“Q1 Y/Y Search & Other revenue growth”
Deck First Quarter 2026 — Earnings Slides · p. 3 ·
Search revenue growth
“Q2 Y/Y revenue growth in Search”
Deck Second Quarter 2026 — Earnings Slides · p. 4 ·
Gemini App users
“YouTubeGemini App 750M+”
Deck Fourth Quarter 2025 — Earnings Slides · p. 3 ·
Gemini App users
“Gemini App monthly active users”
Deck Second Quarter 2026 — Earnings Slides · p. 4 ·
Model API tokens per minute
“Direct API usage 10B+ tokens per minute”
Deck Fourth Quarter 2025 — Earnings Slides · p. 3 ·
Model API tokens per minute
“Tokens per minute (+60% Q/Q)”
Deck First Quarter 2026 — Earnings Slides · p. 3 ·
Model API tokens per minute
“Tokens per minute vs.”
Deck Second Quarter 2026 — Earnings Slides · p. 4 ·
Paid subscriptions
“Google Cloud 325M+ paid consumer subscriptions”
Deck Fourth Quarter 2025 — Earnings Slides · p. 3 ·
Paid subscriptions
“~350M Paid subscriptions”
Deck First Quarter 2026 — Earnings Slides · p. 3 ·
Capital expenditures
“Capital Expenditures ($MM)”
Deck First Quarter 2025 — Earnings Slides · p. 8 ·
Capital expenditures
“Capital Expenditures ($MM)”
Deck Second Quarter 2025 — Earnings Slides · p. 8 ·
Capital expenditures
“Capital Expenditures ($MM)”
Deck Third Quarter 2025 — Earnings Slides · p. 8 ·
Capital expenditures
“Capital Expenditures ($MM)”
Deck Fourth Quarter 2025 — Earnings Slides · p. 10 ·
Capital expenditures
“Capital Expenditures ($MM)”
Deck First Quarter 2026 — Earnings Slides · p. 9 ·
Capital expenditures
“Capital Expenditures ($MM)”
Deck Second Quarter 2026 — Earnings Slides · p. 10 ·
Scale milestones and product cadence
“Earnings Highlights: Annual revenues exceeded $400B for the first time”
Deck Fourth Quarter 2025 — Earnings Slides · p. 3 ·
Scale milestones and product cadence
“Waymo fully autonomous rides per week”
Deck First Quarter 2026 — Earnings Slides · p. 3 ·
Scale milestones and product cadence
“Shipping innovation at scale with incredible velocity”
Deck Second Quarter 2026 — Earnings Slides · p. 3 ·
What they keep talking about · 9
The themes that show up deck after deck, and the ones that disappear.
- Cloud
- A Cloud slide in all six; on the highlights page from Q4 '25 as a $70B+ run-rate, which backlog replaced a quarter later ($460B+, then $514B).
- Search
- Growth on the highlights page from Q4 '25 (+17%); the services table in every deck.
- Gemini
- 750M+ monthly users in Q4 '25, absent in Q1 '26, 950M in Q2 '26.
- Tokens
- 10B+, then 16B+, then ~22B tokens a minute through the first-party APIs.
- Subscriptions
- 325M+ then ~350M paid subscriptions, gone from the Q2 '26 highlights.
- Capex
- A five-quarter bar chart in every deck, never on the highlights page and never with the guide, which is said only on the call.
- Milestones
- $400B of annual revenue (Q4 '25), Waymo rides (Q1 '26 only), a launch timeline (Q2 '26).
- New
- Q2 '26: preferred dividends and net income available to common on the income statement — the new mandatory preferred.
- Quiet
- Other Bets never shown; Waymo rides and paid subscriptions each appear and vanish; free cash flow TTM falls from $74.9B to $53.3B without comment.
What analysts asked them
8 calls · Q3 24 – Q2 26The last eight earnings calls: what analysts kept asking about, which questions got dodged, and how much the CEO did the talking.
Share of questions by topic, call by call. A topic that suddenly dominates is usually the problem. The last row is how much of the answering the CEO did, rather than the CFO or others.
| Share of questions about… | Q3 24 | Q4 24 | Q1 25 | Q2 25 | Q3 25 | Q4 25 | Q1 26 | Q2 26 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Demand & customers | 20% | · | 20% | 22% | 25% | 14% | 50% | 33% |
| Growth & sales | 20% | 23% | 20% | 22% | 38% | 36% | 40% | 22% |
| Pricing & margins | 7% | 23% | 40% | 33% | 38% | 7% | 70% | 56% |
| Guidance & outlook | · | 8% | · | 11% | · | 7% | 20% | 22% |
| Capacity & supply | · | 8% | · | 22% | · | 21% | 40% | 33% |
| Capital & financing | 7% | 15% | 10% | 33% | · | 21% | 20% | 22% |
| Competition | 7% | 23% | · | · | · | · | 10% | · |
| Products & technology | 40% | 46% | 40% | 22% | 38% | 29% | 10% | 67% |
| Macro & regulation | · | 8% | 40% | · | · | · | · | · |
| Other | 47% | 38% | 20% | 33% | 12% | 43% | · | · |
| Questions | 15 | 13 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 14 | 10 | 9 |
Who’s in charge, who’s selling
read from the filings · 7 Oct 2026Shareholder votes against the board and pay, plus which executives have been selling their own shares.
Tier 1 · worsening
Capex raised three times, paid for with ~$50B of new stock and $77B of notes
2026 capex $175-185B → $180-190B → $195-205B; Q2 free cash flow -$5.9B; no buybacks in H1. In June: a $40B ATM, $20.7B of stock underwritten, $10B placed with Berkshire, $19.25B of mandatory preferred converting in 2029. $51.8B of notes in H1 and $25B in August; long-term debt $12.0B → $98.2B in eighteen months.
Tier 2 · stable
Two founders hold 52.7% of the votes on about 6% of the shares
Page 27.4%, Brin 25.3%; insiders 54.3%. The one-share-one-vote proposal drew about 31% of votes cast in both 2025 and 2026, roughly two-thirds of outside votes.
Tier 2 · worsening
A $385M triennial CEO award, and 18.9% against say on pay
March 2026: $126M of TSR-tested units, $84M time-vesting, ~$130M Waymo and ~$45M Wing units at target. Reported 2025 pay was $10.9M, an off-year of the cycle.
Tier 2 · worsening
Net income carries $136B of unrealised gains; stock pay is half of free cash flow
H1 '26 net income $174.8B against operating income $80.5B; SBC 52.8% of FCF; capex 4.3× depreciation.
Tier 3 · stable
The chair draws the largest protest; the controller left before the raise
Hennessy (chair since 2018, director since 2004) 16.6% then 14.8% against. The controller resigned in April 2026 and was replaced internally in June; non-audit work was 45% of EY's 2025 fees.
Accounting rule changes 1 in 1 quarters
- Q2 '26EPS now on net income available to common, after dividends on the new mandatory convertible preferred
Where shareholders voted no
At each annual meeting shareholders vote on who sits on the board, what the executives are paid and whether the company may create more shares. These are the votes that drew the most "no"s at the last two meetings: the shares voted against (or withheld) each year, then what share of all votes cast that was. Under each one, what the vote was about and what a no means.
| 2025 | 2026 | Share 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Say on payExecutive pay. Shareholders say whether they accept what the top executives were paid. The vote is advisory: the board can ignore it, but a large no is a public rebuke and boards usually change the pay plan after one. | — | 2,333.6M | 18.9% |
| Hennessy (Chair)A board seat. Shareholders vote to keep this person on the board, the group that hires, pays and can fire the CEO. A no, or a withheld vote, says they want this director out, often because of the committee they sit on or a decision they signed off. | 2,070.4M | 1,833.2M | 14.8% |
| ArnoldA board seat. | 1,231.6M | 1,227.8M | 9.9% |
| DoerrA board seat. | 1,841.0M | 1,001.8M | 8.1% |
| PageA board seat. | 2,385.3M | 253.8M | 2.1% |
| Stock plan +200M sharesStock to pay staff and executives. Lets the company create new shares to hand out as pay. Every new share makes each existing share a slightly smaller slice of the company, so a no says shareholders think the dilution is too much. | — | 1,181.5M | 9.6% |
Insiders who sold the most stock
Reported sales by executives and directors, biggest first.
| SEC insider data sets, Jul '25-Jun '26 | Sold | Note |
|---|---|---|
| All insiders | $208.1M | 302 sales by 7 people; none flagged as pre-planned |
| Against that | $0 bought | no open-market purchase in the year |