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Sundar Pichai Doubles Down on Startups as Google Expects Windfall From Anthropic, SpaceX

The CEO’s investment strategy is paying bigger returns than Google’s own A.I. ambitions.

Sundar Pichai’s biggest A.I. wins may come from other companies instead of Google itself. As the longtime CEO of Google and its parent, Alphabet, Pichai has poured billions into A.I. products and cloud services, but it’s Google’s early bets on companies like SpaceX and Anthropic that are set to deliver the real payday. Both firms are preparing for blockbuster IPOs this year, positioning Google to make tens of billions of dollars—possibly more—off investments that may prove more profitable than its own A.I. efforts to date.

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Google, helmed by Pichai for more than a decade, has long invested in startups through its venture capital arm, Google Ventures, and its growth arm, CapitalG. The A.I. boom has accelerated that approach, Pichai said during an April 7 interview with Stripe co-founder John Collison and investor Elad Gil. “Now, with the A.I. shift, there are more opportunities on which we can deploy capital in a good way, and so we are doing that,” said the CEO.

SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space company, has become one of Google’s most lucrative holdings. The firm merged with Musk’s A.I. venture xAI earlier this year, pushing its valuation above $1 trillion. SpaceX confidentially filed to go public as soon as June, reportedly targeting a record-breaking $1.75 trillion valuation. Google invested roughly $900 million in SpaceX in 2015 and still holds an estimated 7 percent stake—a position that could earn the company more than $100 billion when the IPO lands.

The payoff has already begun. In early 2025, Alphabet reported that unrealized gains from one private holding contributed $8 billion to quarterly profit, around a quarter of its net income. Bloomberg later identified that company as SpaceX.

Another windfall is expected from Anthropic. Google first invested $2 billion in 2023 and now owns about 14 percent of the company. Once valued in the millions, Anthropic’s worth surged to $380 billion earlier this year, and it’s reportedly exploring an IPO in the fourth quarter of this year. The market debut could give Google one of its largest returns outside its core business in years.

Those gains come as Google’s own A.I. products, like Gemini and Vertex, face fierce competition from OpenAI (which Google hasn’t invested in) and Microsoft. Meanwhile, the company’s venture and growth arms continue to rack up strong performance. Google participated in funding rounds totaling $21.6 billion in 2025, the highest since 2021, with nearly half focused on A.I. ventures, including Anthropic and Physical Intelligence.

Pichai said the company will keep pursuing early-stage tech bets with long-term potential. “You want to be good stewards of capital,” he told Gil and Collison, citing SpaceX and Anthropic as examples. “To the extent you’re bullish on [return on invested capital], you want to invest every last dollar you can there.”

SEE ALSO: Human Capital as a Competitive Moat in the Age of A.I. Agents

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