As one of the Big Five (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft), Google also has the honor of being one of only four companies that have crossed the lucrative $4 trillion market cap line.
While many say the Big Five should be extended to become the Big Six with Nvidia as the world's biggest in terms of market cap, Google can definitely afford to splash the cash.
With a current market cap of $3.67 trillion, Alphabet comfortably sits in third place behind Apple and Nvidia, although its bank balance is about to take a hit with an eye-watering purchase.
The thing is, most of you probably haven't heard of what the tech giant is about to buy.
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Toppling a previous record that was held by Motorola Mobility when Google acquired it for $12.5 billion in 2012, an Israeli startup has busted the bank with a $32 billion takeover.
While this might seem like peanuts for a company that broke the $4 trillion mark in January 2026, there's no escaping the monumental scope of an acquisition that costs this month.
Wiz is an Israeli-based startup that specializes in cloud security, helping providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure scan their entire cloud and remove risks.
Founded by four friends who'd served in the Israeli army’s 8200 intelligence unit, Wiz has been touted by Alphabet for a while.
The irony is that Wiz rejected a $23 billion offer from Alphabet in October 2024, with CEO and co- founder Assaf Rappaport saying (via CNBC) that the company has received some 'very flattering' offers. Instead, Rappaport had grand plans to achieve $1 billion in annual recurring revenue in 2025 before taking Wiz public. At the time, fellow co-founder Roy Reznik said: "We’ve already broken a few records as a private company, and we believe we can also break a few more records as an independent public company as well."
Forbes reports that talks resumed in early 2025, with Wiz finally signing on the dotted line. The Israeli startup has been on a supersonic trajectory, reaching $100 million annual recurring revenue in just 18 months and showing just how lucrative the cloud security industry can be in this new era of artificial intelligence.
With each of the four co-founders having 10% equity in Wiz, Google has put more than $2 billion (post-tax) into their banks. This has boosted their combined net worth to $9.2 billion, but still makes them relatively small fish in the ocean of big tech.
In a statement following the news, Rappaport cheered this new dawn and suggested that Wiz was already working with Google Gemini ahead of more partnership deals being announced in the coming months. Celebrating Wiz falling under the Alphabet alphabet, Rappaport concluded: “Now, as one team with Google Cloud, we have the opportunity to accelerate our roadmap in ways that simply weren’t possible before.
“By integrating the most cutting edge AI capabilities into the Wiz platform, we’ll continue to give security teams new superpowers."
Still, Google shaking hands with Wiz won't come without its controversy. Critics have accused Wiz's growth of being too 'aggressive', especially in the aftermath of it acquiring an Israeli startup called Raftt in December 2023. Raftt's owners alleged that Wiz used its tech to develop Wiz Code, leading to a $200 million lawsuit. Elsewhere, Orca Security sued Wiz while claiming that the latter copied its own approach to agentless cloud security.
Alphabet isn't afraid to splash the cash on massive tech acquisitions, having previously pulled out its checkbook to take on YouTube for just $1.6 billion in 2006, Nest for $3.2 billion in 2014, and Mandiant for $5.4 billion in 2022. That all pales in comparison to the Wiz deal.