Could Buying Alphabet Today Set You Up for Life?

By Prosper Junior Bakiny | November 10, 2025, 4:06 AM

Key Points

Alphabet has already produced life-changing returns.
The company's multiple growth avenues and strong moat mean it can do so again.
10 stocks we like better than Alphabet ›

In the past 15 years, Alphabet's (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) shares have skyrocketed, recording an annual compound growth rate of 20.84% over this period, which is miles ahead of the long-term average for the S&P 500 index. That's impressive, but Alphabet is now a $3.4 trillion stock. Can the company still deliver the kinds of performances that will set up investors who buy its shares today for life?

Image source: Getty Images.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue »

Alphabet's multiple growth paths

Alphabet is best known for its leading search engine, Google. Through this business, the company generates billions of dollars in advertising revenue every year. That should remain the case for a long time. Alphabet has a wide, nearly impregnable moat in this industry thanks to deep network effects and a strong brand name. That's why it is the leading digital ads company in terms of sales.

Even though artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots threatened its search dominance, Alphabet has quickly adapted. So, this business should remain an important long-term growth avenue. However, Alphabet has several others. The company's work in AI and cloud computing is helping drive strong sales growth, and we are arguably still in the early innings of those. Alphabet has the third-largest share in the massive, fast-growing cloud computing market.

And in this area, it benefits from high switching costs.

Alphabet's streaming ambitions are also contributing to its growth. The company dominates television viewing time and generates plenty of subscription revenue and ad sales through YouTube. That's yet another long-term opportunity. Then there is the company's work in autonomous vehicles, which are slowly gaining traction across many major U.S. cities. Alphabet's multiple avenues for growth make the stock attractive.

Don't forget to diversify

Could Alphabet set investors up for life? My view is that it can help, but it's important not to put all your eggs in one basket. Alphabet is a great pick to be one of the largest holdings in a well-diversified portfolio that could generate above-average market returns over the next decade (and beyond), helping significantly increase patient investors' wealth in the process.

Should you invest $1,000 in Alphabet right now?

Before you buy stock in Alphabet, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Alphabet wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $595,194!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,153,334!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,036% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 191% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of November 3, 2025

Prosper Junior Bakiny has positions in Alphabet. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Mentioned In This Article