25 July, New Delhi

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has officially joined the billionaire club, with a net worth of $1.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. This milestone comes as Alphabet added over $1 trillion in market value and delivered 120% returns to investors since 2023, pushing its shares to an all-time high.

What makes Pichai’s achievement especially rare is that he is not a founder, unlike most billionaire tech CEOs. Leaders like Mark Zuckerberg (Meta) and Jensen Huang (Nvidia) amassed their fortunes through large founding equity stakes. In contrast, Pichai holds just a 0.02% stake in Alphabet, valued at around $440 million, with most of his wealth in cash.

Pichai, 53, is also Alphabet’s longest-serving CEO, having completed 10 years in the role this August. Reflecting on his journey and the company’s growth, Pichai noted on X that in 2015, Alphabet's total revenue was $75 billion—whereas YouTube and Google Cloud alone closed 2024 at a $110 billion annual run rate. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk called the milestone “impressive,” and Pichai responded with a folded hands emoji.

Born in Tamil Nadu, India, to a middle-class family, Pichai grew up in a two-room apartment before earning a scholarship to Stanford University in 1993. He joined Google in 2004, led the Android and Chrome teams, and rose to CEO in 2015.

While his net worth is far behind founders Larry Page ($171.2B) and Sergey Brin ($160.4B), Sundar Pichai’s rise remains a remarkable story of vision, grit, and global impact.