Google co-founder Larry Page quietly jumped ahead of Jeff Bezos to become the world’s third-richest person after a fresh surge in Alphabet’s stock tied to the launch of Google’s new Gemini 3 AI model. The market reaction was swift and unmistakable, and it underlines a simple truth conservatives have long known: when American innovators deliver real products that create value, investors reward them.
Alphabet shares spiked nearly 6 percent in early trading before settling back, sending Page’s stake-driven fortune up by roughly $7.6 billion — a tidy gain for someone who stepped away from day-to-day management years ago. The windfall reflects Page’s roughly 3.2 percent ownership of Alphabet and the broader market’s renewed faith in the company’s AI roadmap.
Make no mistake: this wasn’t random luck. Wall Street poured money into Alphabet because Gemini 3 promises real advances and the company posted blockbuster results, including a monster quarter for cloud and ad revenues that wiped out the naysayers. Investors, not virtue-signaling politicians, are the final arbiters of value in this country, and they put their capital behind winners — which should be celebrated, not demonized.
Larry Page has not been a headline-hungry CEO in recent years; he’s been a private technologist who reaps the long-term rewards of building a business that transformed the world. He and Sergey Brin created enormous economic value, hired thousands, and pushed the envelope of what American industry can achieve — and the markets are reflecting that.
If you’re conservative, you should see this as vindication for free enterprise and limited government. Instead of punishing success with punitive taxes or performance-sapping regulation, Washington should clear the runway for more breakthroughs that lift incomes and strengthen national competitiveness. Wealth concentrated by innovation is not theft; it’s the byproduct of risk, talent, and bold ideas that create jobs and opportunity.
That said, nobody should pretend mega-cap tech companies don’t wield enormous influence over speech, data, and markets — power that deserves transparency and common-sense accountability, not a one-size-fits-all crusade to kneecap American champions. Conservatives should demand both: defend entrepreneurship and property rights while insisting on measured reforms that protect consumers and preserve competition without kneecapping innovation.
Hardworking Americans ought to cheer when their innovators win, not turn to envy. Larry Page’s rise to the upper ranks of the world’s wealthiest is a reminder that American ingenuity still works, and the best policy is to foster the environment that creates more LarrYS, not fewer.
