Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the rise of artificial intelligence is creating new opportunities for the company to invest in startups. Speaking with Stripe co-founder John Collison, Pichai highlighted that Alphabet now has more ways to deploy capital effectively.
“We’ve backed SpaceX, Anthropic, and others,” Pichai said. “With the AI shift, more opportunities are opening up, and we’re taking advantage of them.”
Alphabet first invested in SpaceX in 2015, putting in $900 million at a $12 billion valuation. The stake has now grown to an estimated $100 billion after SpaceX merged with Musk’s xAI earlier this year. The company recently filed confidentially for a potential $1.75 trillion IPO.
Pichai also pointed to Anthropic, a competitor at the AI model level but also a partner, which has purchased billions in Google’s TPUs and cloud services. Since 2023, Alphabet has invested over $3 billion for a roughly 14% stake, boosting Anthropic’s valuation to $380 billion as of February.
Google has long invested in startups via GV and CapitalG. But today, AI companies often require hundreds of millions or billions in funding, prompting Alphabet to invest directly from its balance sheet, joining peers like Microsoft, Nvidia, and Amazon.
Pichai stressed that Alphabet wants to remain “good stewards of capital” and focus on high returns. He cited Stripe and Waymo as examples: Stripe’s valuation jumped to $159 billion since Alphabet’s early investment, while Waymo recently raised $16 billion, valuing it at $126 billion. Pichai said that if Alphabet had the capital maturity earlier, it would have invested more in Waymo sooner.
As AI continues to reshape tech, Pichai sees startup investment as a strategic path to stay at the forefront of innovation.
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