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Alphabet Class C (GOOG) Risk Analysis
Risk Overview Q2, 2026
Risk Change Over Time
- Share Price & Shareholder Rights - Risk 1We cannot guarantee that we will make repurchases under any share repurchase program, that our common stock dividend program will be continuously active or fully consummated, or that the required dividend payments on our Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stock together with any repurchases or dividends on our common stock will enhance long-term stockholder value. Further, share repurchases or dividends could increase the volatility of our stock prices and could diminish our cash reserves.
We have historically engaged in share repurchases of our Class A stock and Class C stock from time to time in accordance with authorizations from the Board of Directors of Alphabet. Our repurchase program does not have an expiration date and does not obligate Alphabet to repurchase any specific dollar amount or to acquire any specific number of shares and we retain discretion as to whether and when to utilize this program. Although we have an authorized share repurchase program, there can be no assurances that we will make repurchases in the near term or at all. Furthermore, if we are utilizing the repurchase program at the time of any future offerings of our equity securities, including offerings of our Class A stock or Class C stock under our ATM Program, we may be required to suspend share repurchases, which could further exacerbate any decrease in the trading prices of our stock from dilution or otherwise. Our cash dividend program pays regular cash dividends to our Class A, Class B and Class C stockholders. Any and all future cash dividends on our common stock are subject to declaration by our Board of Directors in its sole discretion, and in accordance with the requirements of any applicable laws, rules and regulations, including the Delaware General Corporation Law. Our common stock cash dividend program does not require, and our Board of Directors may decide not to declare, a cash dividend each quarter, and does not obligate our Board of Directors to declare a dividend at any specific dollar amount per share. Any such decision by our Board of Directors may depend on a variety of factors that it may deem relevant, including but not limited to our earnings, liquidity, financial condition, other capital deployment opportunities, level of indebtedness and general market conditions. Separately, we are contractually required to make regular dividend payments on our Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stock, which will diminish our cash reserves or cause dilution if we elect to settle in shares. Our share repurchases and dividends could affect our share trading prices, increase their volatility, reduce our cash reserves and may be suspended or terminated at any time, which may result in a decrease in the trading prices of our stock.
- Corporate Activity and Growth - Risk 2Our increasing investment in new businesses, products, services, and technologies is inherently risky, and could divert management attention and harm our business, financial condition, and operating results.
We have invested and expect to expand our investment in new businesses, products, services, and technologies in a wide range of industries beyond online advertising. The investments that we are making across our businesses - such as building AI-optimized infrastructure, including our custom TPUs, and integrating AI capabilities into new and existing products and services - reflect our ongoing efforts to innovate and provide products and services that are helpful to users, advertisers, publishers, customers, content providers, and distribution partners. Our investments ultimately may not be commercially viable or may not result in an adequate return of capital and, in pursuing new strategies, we may incur unanticipated liabilities, including those arising from the implementation of new regulatory requirements. We have invested and expect to significantly expand our investment in property and equipment, including our technical infrastructure, and we expect these assets to benefit our business over their estimated useful lives. Changes in facts and circumstances such as changes to historical asset performance, expected technology advancements, and future network deployment plans could change the period over which we expect to benefit from the asset and impact our financial condition and operating results. Innovations in our products and services could also result in changes to user and customer behavior and affect our revenue trends. These endeavors involve significant risks and uncertainties, including diversion of resources and management attention from current operations, different monetization models, and the use of alternative investment, governance, or compensation structures that may fail to adequately align incentives across the company or otherwise accomplish their objectives. Within Google Services, we continue to invest in devices, including our smartphones, home devices, and wearables, which is a highly competitive market with frequent introduction of new products and services, rapid adoption of technological advancements by competitors, increased market saturation in developed countries, short product life cycles, evolving industry standards, continual improvement in performance characteristics, and price and feature sensitivity on the part of consumers and businesses. There can be no assurance we will be able to provide devices that compete effectively. Within Google Cloud, we devote significant resources to develop and deploy our enterprise-ready cloud services, including Google Cloud Platform and Google Workspace, and we are advancing our AI platforms and models to support these tools and technologies, including the development of our custom TPUs and how we deliver them to our customers. We are incurring significant and increasing costs and liabilities to build and maintain infrastructure to support cloud computing services, invest in cybersecurity, and hire talent. Meanwhile, our competitors are rapidly developing and deploying cloud-based services and capacity. Pricing and delivery models, which are subject to increasing regulatory scrutiny and requirements, are competitive and constantly evolving, and we may therefore not achieve our business objectives. Further, our business with financial services, healthcare, and public sector customers may present additional risks, including regulatory compliance risks. For instance, we may be subject to government audits and cost reviews, and any failure to comply or any deficiencies found may expose us to legal, financial, and reputational risks. Evolving laws and regulations may require us to make new capital investments, build new products, and seek partners to deliver localized services in other countries, and we may not be able to meet sovereign operating requirements. To meet the AI compute capacity demands of our customers, we are engaging in the supply of TPU systems which may increase our costs and operational complexity. We also have a number of large, long-duration commercial agreements, which could increase our liabilities and obligations in the event of nonperformance by us, our counterparties, or vendors. These include certain financial guarantees, such as backstops to support the build-out of third-party data centers and power infrastructure. In the event of such nonperformance or industry challenges, we may incur additional liabilities, have excess capacity that we cannot easily redeploy, and not receive payments from our counterparties or customers. Within Other Bets, we are investing significantly in areas such as transportation and life sciences, among others. These investment areas face intense competition from large, experienced, and well-funded competitors, and our offerings, many of which involve the development of new and emerging technologies, may not be successful, or be able to compete effectively or operate at sufficient levels of profitability. In addition, new and evolving products and services, including those that use AI, raise ethical, technological, legal, regulatory, and other challenges, which could harm our brands and demand for our products and services. Because all of these investment areas are inherently risky, no assurance can be given that such strategies and offerings will be successful or will not harm our reputation, financial condition, and operating results.
Risk Highlights Q2, 2026
Risk Word Cloud
Risk Factors Full Breakdown - Total Risks 29
- Share Price & Shareholder Rights - Risk 1ChangedWe cannot guarantee that we will make repurchases under any share repurchase program, that our common stock dividend program will be continuously active or fully consummated, or that the required dividend payments on our Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stock together with any repurchases or dividends on our common stock will enhance long-term stockholder value. Further, share repurchases or dividends could increase the volatility of our stock prices and could diminish our cash reserves.
We have historically engaged in share repurchases of our Class A stock and Class C stock from time to time in accordance with authorizations from the Board of Directors of Alphabet. Our repurchase program does not have an expiration date and does not obligate Alphabet to repurchase any specific dollar amount or to acquire any specific number of shares and we retain discretion as to whether and when to utilize this program. Although we have an authorized share repurchase program, there can be no assurances that we will make repurchases in the near term or at all. Furthermore, if we are utilizing the repurchase program at the time of any future offerings of our equity securities, including offerings of our Class A stock or Class C stock under our ATM Program, we may be required to suspend share repurchases, which could further exacerbate any decrease in the trading prices of our stock from dilution or otherwise. Our cash dividend program pays regular cash dividends to our Class A, Class B and Class C stockholders. Any and all future cash dividends on our common stock are subject to declaration by our Board of Directors in its sole discretion, and in accordance with the requirements of any applicable laws, rules and regulations, including the Delaware General Corporation Law. Our common stock cash dividend program does not require, and our Board of Directors may decide not to declare, a cash dividend each quarter, and does not obligate our Board of Directors to declare a dividend at any specific dollar amount per share. Any such decision by our Board of Directors may depend on a variety of factors that it may deem relevant, including but not limited to our earnings, liquidity, financial condition, other capital deployment opportunities, level of indebtedness and general market conditions. Separately, we are contractually required to make regular dividend payments on our Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stock, which will diminish our cash reserves or cause dilution if we elect to settle in shares. Our share repurchases and dividends could affect our share trading prices, increase their volatility, reduce our cash reserves and may be suspended or terminated at any time, which may result in a decrease in the trading prices of our stock.
- Share Price & Shareholder Rights - Risk 2AddedAdditional issuances of our Class A stock or Class C stock under our ATM Program, any conversions of our Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stock to Class A stock or Class C stock and any other future sales or other issuances of our Class A stock or Class C stock could dilute our existing stockholders or otherwise depress the market prices of our Class A stock and Class C stock.
In June 2026, we established an ATM Program, pursuant to which we may offer and sell up to $40 billion of shares of our Class A stock and Class C stock to or through sales agents under established limits. Any sales under our ATM Program could have dilutive effects for our existing stockholders over time. In addition, the conversion of some or all of our shares of Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stock and our depositary shares, or any election to settle our contractually required dividend payments on our Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stock in the form of Class A stock or Class C stock, could also have dilutive effects for our existing stockholders over time. The market prices of our Class A stock or Class C stock is likely to be influenced by any sales under our ATM Program, the issuance of additional Class A stock or Class C stock in connection with the conversion of or dividend payments on our Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stock and our depositary shares, or any other future sales or other issuances of our Class A stock or Class C stock. Market prices could be depressed as a result of: (1) investors' anticipation of the potential sale or resale, as applicable, under the ATM Program or received upon conversion of our Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stock or our depositary shares; (2) possible sales of our Class A stock or Class C stock by investors who view the Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stock or our depositary shares as a more attractive means of equity participation in us than owning shares of Class A stock or Class C stock; and (3) any hedging or arbitrage trading activity involving the Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stocks or our depositary shares and our Class A stock or Class C stock. There is no assurance that any depression in the market price from such dilution will only be in the short-term or temporary.
- Share Price & Shareholder Rights - Risk 3Provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware law could discourage a takeover that stockholders may consider favorable.
Provisions in Alphabet's certificate of incorporation and bylaws may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change of control or changes in our management. These provisions include the following: - Our Board of Directors has the right to elect directors to fill a vacancy created by the expansion of the Board of Directors or the resignation, death, or removal of a director. - Our stockholders may not act by written consent, which makes it difficult to take certain actions without holding a stockholders' meeting. - Our certificate of incorporation prohibits cumulative voting in the election of directors. This limits the ability of minority stockholders to elect director candidates. - Stockholders must provide advance notice to nominate individuals for election to the Board of Directors or to propose matters that can be acted upon at a stockholders' meeting. These provisions may discourage or deter a potential acquirer from conducting a solicitation of proxies to elect the acquirer's own slate of directors or otherwise attempting to obtain control of our company. - Our Board of Directors may issue, without stockholder approval, shares of undesignated preferred stock, which makes it possible for our Board of Directors to issue preferred stock with voting or other rights or preferences that could impede the success of any attempt to acquire us. As a Delaware corporation, we are also subject to certain Delaware anti-takeover provisions. Under Delaware law, a corporation may not engage in a business combination with any holder of 15% or more of its outstanding voting stock unless the holder has held the stock for three years or, among other things, the Board of Directors has approved the transaction. Our Board of Directors could rely on Delaware law to prevent or delay an acquisition of us.
- Share Price & Shareholder Rights - Risk 4The concentration of our stock ownership limits our stockholders' ability to influence corporate matters.
Our Class B stock has 10 votes per share, our Class A stock has one vote per share, and our Class C stock has no voting rights. As of December 31, 2025, Larry Page and Sergey Brin beneficially owned approximately 89.3% of our outstanding Class B stock, which represented approximately 52.7% of the voting power of our outstanding common stock. Through their stock ownership, Larry and Sergey have significant influence over all matters requiring stockholder approval, including the election of directors and significant corporate transactions, such as a merger or other sale of our company or our assets, for the foreseeable future. In addition, because our Class C stock carries no voting rights (except as required by applicable law), the issuance of the Class C stock, including in future stock-based acquisition transactions and to fund employee equity incentive programs, could continue Larry and Sergey's current relative voting power and their ability to elect all of our directors and to determine the outcome of most matters submitted to a vote of our stockholders. The share repurchases made pursuant to our repurchase program may also affect Larry and Sergey's relative voting power. This concentrated control limits or severely restricts other stockholders' ability to influence corporate matters and we may take actions that some of our stockholders do not view as beneficial, which could reduce the market price of our Class A stock and our Class C stock.
See a full breakdown of risk according to category and subcategory. The list starts with the category with the most risk. Click on subcategories to read relevant extracts from the most recent report.