Reasons Behind Sands Capital Select Growth Strategy’s New Pick Alphabet (GOOG)

Sands Capital, an investment management company, released its “Sands Capital Select Growth Strategy” Q3 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. U.S. large-cap growth equities continued to recover from a sharp sell-off in early April. Strong corporate earnings, investor enthusiasm around artificial intelligence (AI), and growing expectations for Federal Reserve policy easing drove the robust gains. The portfolio returned 6.3% (net) in the quarter, compared to the benchmark’s 10.5% gain. You can check the fund’s top 5 holdings to know more about its best picks for 2025.

In its third-quarter 2025 investor letter, Sands Capital Select Growth Strategy highlighted stocks such as Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG). Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), the parent company of Google, offers various platforms and services operating through Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets segments. The one-month return of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) was 16.39%, and its shares gained 87.50% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On November 26, 2025, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) stock closed at $320.28 per share, with a market capitalization of $3.866 trillion.

Sands Capital Select Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its third quarter 2025 investor letter:

“Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is a global internet company whose principal businesses are Google and YouTube—two of the most visited websites in the world. The company uses this consumer reach to sell targeted advertising, which benefits from the unique value of search intent data. Advertisers can match consumer demand more precisely, helping drive strong returns on their marketing spend. AI is poised to reshape how people search for information online, creating an opportunity to expand the addressable market. Alphabet appears well-positioned to lead this shift. It can leverage its Chrome browser, AI platform Gemini, and the wide reach of its applications to integrate more intelligent and personalized consumer experiences. These could evolve into AI assistants capable of handling complex queries and directly connecting users to products and services. Amid these shifts, Google Cloud is starting to improve its competitive position. Beyond search and cloud, we are also increasingly optimistic that Alphabet can receive credit from the market for its other dominant and emerging businesses. These include YouTube, as well as technologies such as Waymo. Although still early in commercialization, Waymo benefits from Alphabet’s scale and access to data—both critical for training autonomous systems.”

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is in the 7th position on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 178 hedge fund portfolios held Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) at the end of the second quarter which was 164 in the previous quarter. In the third quarter of 2025, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) achieved its first-ever $100 billion in revenue. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.

In another article, we covered Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and shared the list of stocks Jim Cramer discussed recently. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 2025 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.