Technology

Google founders have sold $1 billion in stock since May, the most since 2017

Published

4 years ago

July 30, 2021

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Larry Page, left, and Sergey Brin, co-founders of Google Inc.

JB Reed | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Google founders and controlling Alphabet stakeholders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have sold more than $1 billion worth of stock combined since May of this year.

Beginning in May of this year, the two sold both Class A and Class C shares worth more than $1.07 billion, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission compiled by OpenInsider. Brin’s sales total more than $610 million, while Page’s sales — including a round this week — are now over $462 million. Both founders are selling under pre-filed trading plans.

Brin and Page last sold shares in 2017, when their last plan expired. The company’s stock has performed well this year — Alphabet Class A shares are up more than 50% year-to-date, outpacing the NASDAQ and the other tech giants (Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft). The company reported strong revenues and earnings for Q2 2021 on Wednesday as it rebounded from the worst effects of the Covid pandemic, including a 69% annualized jump in advertising revenue to more than $50 billion for the quarter.

At the end of 2019, Page stepped down from the role as Alphabet CEO, handing the reins to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. At the same time, Sergey Brin stepped down as president of Alphabet and his role was eliminated.

Page and Brin, who co-founded Google in 1998, remain board members and holding majority stake in the company, controlling 51% of a special class of Alphabet’s voting shares. The two are among the world’s richest people.

The reclusive Silicon Valley billionaires have kept a low-profile since stepping down from their leadership roles, although Brin made an appearance at Google’s first retail store in New York this week, CNBC has learned. Page has reportedly been spending a lot of time on his yacht in the Fijian Islands during the pandemic, according to Insider.

Watch: Alphabet earnings report “walloped” analyst expectations, says analyst

Technology

Quantum computing startup IQM raises $320 million as investors pile into the tech

Published

2 hours ago

September 3, 2025

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Quantum computing startup IQM raises 0 million as investors pile into the tech

Quantum computing firm IQM says it’s raised $320 million of fresh funding to ramp up investments in technology and commercial growth.

The startup, which is headquartered in Espoo, Finland, was founded in 2018 by a team of scientists with the aim of building powerful quantum computers in Europe like the machines companies such as Google and IBM are building in the U.S.

Quantum computers are machines that use the laws of quantum mechanics to solve problems too complex for classical computers, which store information in bits (ones and zeroes). Quantum computers use quantum bits, or “qubits,” which can be zero, one or something in between — the aim being to process much larger volumes of data to facilitate breakthroughs in areas like medicine, science and finance.

IQM’s funding round was led by Ten Eleven Ventures, a U.S. cybersecurity-focused investment firm, while Finnish venture capital firm Tesi also invested. It gives the seven-year-old company “unicorn” status, meaning it’s valued at $1 billion or more, according to co-CEO and co-founder Jan Goetz.

The investment underscores heightened investor buzz around the quantum computing space. Shares of publicly-listed quantum firms like IonQ and D-Wave Quantum have seen huge rallies in the past year. IonQ stock is up nearly 480% in the last 12 months, while D-Wave Quantum’s shares have spiked over 1,400%.

“If you compare us directly to the companies which are Nasdaq-listed and take KPIs like people, revenue, patents, things like this, actually we are not behind. We can actually compete on this level,” Goetz told CNBC in an interview.

Goetz said that IQM has come a long way since the early days of building the company. The company has 350 employees globally and has built out finance and sales operations as well as a factory in Espoo where it builds its machines.

Europe vs. the U.S.

There are now a number of European companies working on quantum computers, including IQM, Pasqual and Quandela. However, they are yet to achieve the scale of their U.S. counterparts.

In a speech earlier this year, the European Commission’s tech chief Henna Virkkunen said that European quantum computing startups often struggle to scale due to a lack of private capital, noting that the European Union receives only 5% of global private funding compared to 50% for the U.S.

“If you just look at what is happening in Europe in these deep tech fields which come out of universities, naturally we have quite a lot of startups because we have so many good universities in Europe. But then it’s really hard to make them grow,” IQM’s Goetz said.

“Now I think there is a risk of, if you have very high valuations in companies in the U.S., that they just drive M&A consolidation using their high share price.” Indeed, IonQ in June announced it would buy U.K. quantum computing startup Oxford Ionics for nearly $1.1 billion in a deal consisting primarily of stock.

IQM has now sold a total of 15 quantum computers to date. The company sells two main products: its flagship machine, Radiance, and a more affordable quantum computer called Spark, which the company sells to universities.

Going forward, IQM is planning to move beyond just hardware. Goetz said the firm will use part of the cash it’s raised to develop a software platform aimed at making quantum computing accessible to developers who aren’t experts in the field.

The other main goal for IQM is global expansion, with plans to scale up commercial and sales operations in the U.S. and Asia. Goetz said IQM has sold two systems in Asia so far — one in Taiwan and the other in South Korea — and recently sold its first machine in the U.S.

While an initial public offering may be an option for IQM further down the line, Goetz insisted the company has no IPO plans for the moment, adding there are still “attractive routes” in the private markets for raising capital.

The ultimate goal, he said, is to “build a sustainable, profitable business and really make it a kind of company that’s there to stay and to shape the future of compute over a long time.”

“We will do whatever is necessary to make that happen,” Goetz added.

Technology

Sen. Rand Paul blasts Trump’s stake in Intel as ‘a step towards socialism’

Published

3 hours ago

September 3, 2025

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Sen. Rand Paul blasts Trump's stake in Intel as 'a step towards socialism'

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., does a TV interview in the Russell Senate Office Building on Tuesday, June 3, 2025.

Bill Clark | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Wednesday criticized the Trump administration’s decision to take a 10% stake in embattled chipmaker Intel, calling the investment “a step towards socialism.”

Intel announced last month that the U.S. government made an $8.9 billion investment in Intel common stock, purchasing 433.3 million shares at a price of $20.47 per share, giving it a 10% stake in the company. Intel noted that the price the government paid was a discount to the current market price.

Rand said government ownership is “a bad idea.”

“It’s always a mistake to say, ‘Well we have this one bad policy, all right, we’ll tolerate a little socialism, but we don’t want anymore,” Paul told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday. “I think it’s a bad idea.”

President Donald Trump said on Truth Social last month that the government’s stake in the chipmaker is a “great Deal for America, and, also, a great Deal for INTEL.”

Trump has taken an increasingly heavy hand in the private sector, raising concern among conservative lawmakers like Paul, who have long opposed big government. In August, the Trump administration said the government would take 15% of certain Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices chip sales to China. The Pentagon bought a $400 million equity stake in rare-earth miner MP Materials. It also took a “golden share” in U.S. Steel as part of a deal to allow Nippon Steel to buy the U.S. industrial giant.

Among the most vocal supporters in Congress of Trump’s Intel proposal has been Sen. Bernie Sanders, the self-described democratic socialist from Vermont. Sanders, a longtime and vocal Trump critic, told news outlets last month that, “Taxpayers should not be providing billions of dollars in corporate welfare to large, profitable corporations like Intel without getting anything in return.”

But Rand said it’s not smart to involve the government in the free market.

“I worry that the free market movement, the movement that was a big part of the Republican Party, is being diminished over time,” Rand said.

WATCH: Sen. Rand Paul on U.S. government’s stake in Intel: It’s a step towards socialism

Technology

Translation startup DeepL launches an AI ‘agent’ in challenge to players like OpenAI

Published

4 hours ago

September 3, 2025

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DeepL CEO Jaroslaw “Jarek” Kutylowski.

DeepL

German startup DeepL on Wednesday said it was expanding beyond artificial intelligence-powered translation into general AI agents focused on businesses.

The term “agent” refers to an AI tool that can carry out tasks in the background in response to user prompts.

DeepL Agent is designed to complete “repetitive, time-intensive tasks across a wide variety of functions” according to the company. It can responds to natural langauge commands from a users. DeepL Agent can be used in various teams from human resources to marketing, the company added.

Agents or agentic AI have become buzzwords in the technology industry, underscoring how companies see how these digital assistants automating more mundane tasks. Companies such as Microsoft with Co-Pilot and Anthropic’s Claude are products focused on the enterprise customer.

The move is a step beyond what DeepL, which is valued at $2 billion, has focused on since it was founded in 2017. It potentially pits the company against major AI players like Anthropic, OpenAI and Microsoft, which are targeting enterprise customers.

DeepL CEO Jarek Kutylowski told CNBC on Wednesday that the company’s agent was a natural extension of its translation product.

DeepL launches AI agent that goes beyond translation

“We found out that the technology is as capable of helping you whenever you’re doing research or whatever you’re doing,” Kutylowski said.

“All of those tedious tasks in your office when you have to switch between different systems and take some data from one system, put it into another one, AI, and those autonomous agents, and the DeepL Agent in particular, can help solve so much better.”

DeepL’s translation product is based on its self-developed large language models. Kutylowski said DeepL Agent is based on its own models, as well as on those available “externally” from other providers.

While there are a large number of companies advertising AI agents, the market is still in a very early stage. Overall investor interest in AI companies is meanwhile still high. Amazon-backed Anthropic on Tuesday announced a funding round that put the firm at a $183-billion post-money valuation.

Technology listings appear to be gathering steam, with both fintech firm Klarna and crypto exchange Gemini this week unveiling details of their upcoming initial public offerings.

Against this backdrop, CNBC asked Kutylowski if DeepL was considering an IPO, to which he responded: “That’s not a short term plan that we would be considering right now.”