29 April 2004: Google files to go public, Dutch auction and all
Google filed its IPO paperwork on April 29, 2004, revealing for the first time how profitable its search ads were. It also announced an unusual Dutch auction to sell shares and a dual-class structure keeping control with its founders. The filing included a letter warning investors that Google was not a conventional company. The shares began trading in August at $85 and went on to multiply many times.
The lesson: Read the founders' letter; it often tells you more about the company than the financial statements.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in Google / Alphabet at the start of 2005 → $41,667 today, vs $5,763 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 2005, the first year in our price data after the event. That is 41.7 times the money, and $35,904 more than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What Google / Alphabet teaches: Owning a toll road on a growing activity can be enough; Alphabet's search monopoly kept compounding through crises, lawsuits and repeated predictions of its disruption.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | $4.80 | $41,667 | $5,763 |
| 2007 | $12.00 | $16,667 | $4,789 |
| 2008 | $17.00 | $11,765 | $4,626 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought Google / Alphabet? Every starting year and the full story →
More Google / Alphabet history
- 12 January 2010: Google threatens to leave China
- 10 August 2015: Google reorganizes itself as Alphabet
- 19 August 2004: Google goes public by auction
- 4 September 1998: Google is incorporated
- 20 October 2020: US sues Google over search dominance
- 21 October 2004: Google's first report card as a public company
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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