今年早些時候，沃倫·巴菲特和查理·芒格對伯克希爾·哈撒韋公司的投資者表示，在谷歌2004年8月19日首次公開募股時錯過該公司的股票是一個錯誤。據巴菲特說，谷歌的創始人當時帶著招股說明書來找伯克希爾公司，然而，他承認，“我搞砸了。”

回首過去，谷歌本會是一次成功的投資。該搜索引擎在2004年第一次登陸股市時，價值還不如牙膏制造商高露潔棕欖，首日收盤后的市值約為270億美元。如今，它已是標普500指數中第二大的公司，市值約為6,480億美元。公司的早期投資者也賺了盆滿缽滿。

那些在13年前以85美元的首次公開募股價格購買谷歌股票的投資者，如今持有的股票價值已經是當初的22倍。這還考慮了公司在2015年的股份拆細，當時谷歌進行了重組，成為了Alphabet的子公司。

換句話說，2004年的1美元變成了如今的22美元，100美元變成了2,200美元，1,000美元變成了22,000美元，當時投資4.55萬美元的人，到周五時已經變成了百萬富翁。

作為對比，在標普500的股票中進行投資的人，同期的平均投資回報率只有2.3倍。

與此同時，該公司的收入增長也超出了股市平均水準。2016年，Alphabet收入為903億美元，2004年以來增長了28倍。公司的大部分收入仍然來自谷歌網站的廣告，比例達到89%。剩下的還包括谷歌在2006年收購的視頻分享平臺YouTube產生的收入。

Alphabet的崛起，原因在于谷歌的搜索引擎已經成為了大約數十億月活躍用戶的生活必需品。實際上，根據亞馬遜持有的流量數據查詢網站Alexa的數據，谷歌的搜索引擎是訪問量最大的網站，每個用戶每天會在上面用掉近8分鐘時間。

Alphabet也在尋求其他增長點。公司如今在穩固發展其云服務業務，同時通過收購DeepMind等公司增強人工智能領域的實力。谷歌的觸角還伸到了無人機、自動駕駛汽車和智能城市上，甚至還開始銷售Pixel智能手機等消費品硬件。（財富中文網）

譯者：嚴匡正

Earlier this year, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger told Berkshire Hathaway investors that passing on Google stock shortly after its initial public offering on August 19, 2004 was a mistake. According to Buffett, Google's founders approached Berkshire with a investment prospectus, but, he admitted, "I blew it."

In retrospect, Google would have been a winning investment. When it first hit the stock market in 2004, the search engine was worth less than toothpaste-maker Colgate-Palmolive, at about $27 billion at the close of trading that day. Today, it's the second largest company of the S&P 500 Index with a market value of about $648 billion. And its early investors rose right alongside it.

An investor who bought Google stock 13 years ago at its IPO price of $85 would now own a piece of the company worth about 22 times their original investment. That also takes into account the company's stock split in 2015, when it restructured under a larger company called Alphabet.

Put it another way: A dollar in 2004 would have turned into 22, one hundred into $2,200, one thousand to $22,000, with an investor offering $45,500 becoming a millionaire by Friday.

In comparison, an investor who had decided to invest in the S&P 500 would've only received a 2.3 times return on their initial investment.

Meanwhile, the company's revenue growth has outpaced that of its stock. In 2016, Alphabet reported revenue of $90.3 billion, which has grown 28 times since 2004. The majority of the revenue also still comes from advertising on Google websites, about 89%. That now also includes video-sharing platform YouTube, which Google bought in 2006.

Alphabet's surge has come as Google's search engine has become an integral part of its estimated billion-plus monthly users. In fact, its search engine has become the most frequented site on the web, according to Amazon-owned Alexa, with consumers spending nearly 8 minutes each on the site daily.

Alphabet is also looking to other areas for growth. The company is steadily growing its cloud services business, while expanding its artificial intelligence capabilities via acquisitions such as DeepMind. It's also working on drones, self-driving cars, and smart cities. The company has even started selling consumer hardware like its Pixel smartphone.