Two of the most respected value investors on the planet disclosed sharply larger Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL | GOOGL Price Prediction) positions in their Q1 2026 13F filings, dated March 31 and filed May 15. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway more than doubled its Class A GOOGL share count, adding roughly 36.4 million shares, and opened a new Class C GOOG position. Li Lu’s Himalaya Capital went further on a portfolio-weight basis, with Alphabet running at roughly 44.8% of the fund (GOOGL ~22.8% plus GOOG ~22.0%).
The dollar comparison and the conviction comparison tell different stories. Berkshire’s Alphabet stake sits at about $16.6 billion, or roughly 6% of the portfolio, and a separate bullish read from finance media puts the position even higher, at around $41 billion, Berkshire’s fourth-largest equity holding and larger than its Coca-Cola stake. Li Lu’s book, by contrast, is only about $1.43 billion in Alphabet, but nearly half of it rides on the same idea. When we say Li Lu bet bigger, we mean concentration, not dollars.
Alphabet traded around $335.70 on July 28, up 6.52% year to date and 74.32% over the past year. The stock has also risen nearly 17% since the March 31 filing date, meaning both investors are already sitting on paper gains from the disclosed quarter.
What the Thesis Looks Like From the Outside
Both Buffett and Li Lu hunt for durable moats, high returns on capital, and reasonable prices. Alphabet’s Q1 FY2026 earnings report, reported April 29, hits all three. EPS of $5.11 crushed the $2.63 consensus on revenue of $109.90 billion, up 21.8% year over year. Google Cloud revenue jumped 63% to $20.03 billion, and the cloud backlog nearly doubled quarter over quarter to more than $460 billion. Operating margin ran at 36.1%, and the business threw off enough capital to support a 5% dividend hike to $0.22 per share quarterly.
The reported note on Berkshire’s move is telling: it reportedly included a $10 billion private placement to help fund Alphabet’s AI infrastructure, tying Berkshire directly to the $175 billion to $185 billion 2026 CapEx plan management guided in February. For Li Lu, a 45% weighting reflects the compounder logic: high ROIC (Alphabet posts 38.9% return on equity), low leverage, and a hyperscaler growth profile at a forward P/E of 26.
What It Means for a Retirement-Focused Investor
Sell-side sentiment is aligned. Alpha Vantage counts 14 Strong Buy ratings, 43 Buy ratings, seven Hold ratings and zero Sell ratings, with an average target of $432.29. The near-term risk is the CapEx bill: Q1 free cash flow of $10.12 billion fell 46.6% year over year as CapEx more than doubled. That is the trade-off Buffett and Li Lu accepted when they sized up.
A 45% single-stock weight fits a concentrated fund manager, not a retiree drawing income. The signal worth borrowing is the framework: Alphabet earns a place in a long-duration portfolio because the moat, the cash generation, and the AI monetization path are compounding together. Following the trade at a rational weight, not copying Li Lu’s concentration, is the sensible read.
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