This Google billionaire quietly gave away $700 million in shares. Here’s who benefited and why

One of the world’s wealthiest people and the co-founder of Google, Sergey Brin, quietly donated Alphabet shares worth a staggering $700 million or approximately ₹6,000 crore, a Bloomberg report has claimed.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin has sold over $11 billion shares since Google’s IPO in 2004.(AFP file)

According to Bloomberg News, a significant chunk of the generous gift went to Catalyst4, a nonprofit founded by the Google co-founder to support research into central nervous system diseases and climate change solutions. Another 580,000 Alphabet shares were allocated to his family foundation, and 282,000 shares were gifted to the Michael J Fox Foundation, which focuses on Parkinson’s disease research.

Earlier regulatory filings revealed that Brin had donated 4.1 million Alphabet shares, but the exact recipients of the shares weren’t initially disclosed. However, this is not the first time Brin has made a high-profile contribution to causes he believes in.

In 2023, he donated $600 million during the launch of Google’s AI-powered search engine and another $100 million in 2024. According to Bloomberg data, Sergey Brin has sold over $11 billion shares since Google’s IPO in 2004.

He has consistently supported Parkinson’s disease research. He has backed a range of bold initiatives, from funding psychedelic research to investing in an ambitious $155 billion project aimed at building “energy islands” off the coast of Copenhagen.

Who is Sergey Brin?

Even though Brin left his role as Alphabet president in 2019, he is part of the board and holds considerable power in Alphabet with voting rights. Born in Russia, Brin immigrated to the US at six years old to escape anti-Semitic persecution.

In 1998, while at Stanford, he co-founded Google with Larry Page, which catapulted him into the ultra-wealthy ranks and changed how the internet was used across the globe. His creation, Alphabet, in 2015, oversees everything from YouTube to self-driving cars.

Even after his generous donations and gifts, the 51-year-old’s net worth is $134 billion or ₹11.52 lakh crore. According to Forbes, he is the 8th richest person in the world.