Larry Page, the co-founder of Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, has seen a major rise in his net worth, gaining a whopping $5.4 billion.
As of the time of writing, Larry Page’s total net worth stands at an impressive $109 billion.
This surge in wealth has catapulted him to the 12th position on Forbes’ list of the richest billionaires.
The primary source of Larry Page’s gains is his status as a controlling shareholder of Alphabet Inc.
The company’s share price experienced a substantial increase of 5.94%, reaching $129.46 from its previous closing price of $122.
How did Larry Page make $5.5 billion?
The boost in share price came following the impressive second-quarter earnings report released by Alphabet after the market close.
The strong financial performance beat analysts’ expectations on both revenue and earnings, driving the stock up by as much as 6% in after-hours trading.
The reported revenue for the quarter was $74.6 billion, surpassing expectations of $72.75 billion, and the earnings per share stood at $1.44, exceeding the projected $1.32 by analysts.
Google’s ad revenues performed exceptionally well, totalling $58.14 billion for the quarter, surpassing the estimated $57.5 billion and the $56.3 billion reported in the same period last year.
YouTube’s ad revenues also outperformed expectations, reaching $7.66 billion compared to the forecasted $7.41 billion.
Furthermore, Alphabet’s Google Cloud business reported a profit for the second quarter in a row, with revenues totaling $8 billion and a segment income of $395 million.
This performance marked a significant improvement compared to the $590 million loss reported for the same quarter in the previous year.
Alphabet’s total operating income for the quarter amounted to $21.8 billion, reflecting the company’s strong overall performance.
Larry Page’s background
Larry Page, despite stepping down as CEO of Alphabet in 2019, continues to hold an influential position as a board member and controlling shareholder.
He holds a substantial stake in the business through his ownership of Class B and C shares. According to a company filing in April 2022, these holdings amount to approximately 6% of the entire business.
It is worth noting that Page’s Class B shares are not publicly traded like the Class A shares. Instead, their value is determined based on the current market prices of the publicly traded Class A shares.
This valuation method comes into play because the Class B shares can be converted into Class A shares on a one-for-one basis, as disclosed in the company’s proxy statement.
On the other hand, Page possesses nearly 20 million shares of Alphabet Class C stock, which are publicly traded.
Alongside fellow Stanford Ph.D. student Sergey Brin, he co-founded Google in 1998 and played a pivotal role in inventing Google’s PageRank algorithm, which revolutionized the search engine industry.
Apart from his contributions to the tech giant, Larry Page is also known for his involvement in various ventures.
He is a founding investor in space exploration company Planetary Resources and has funded startups focused on “flying car” technologies, such as Kitty Hawk and Opener.