The two tickers represent two different share classes: A (GOOGL) and C (GOOG). The B shares are owned by insiders and don't trade on the public markets. It's those B shares that are still in the possession of Brin, Page, Schmidt, and a couple other directors.
- Google split its stock in April 2014, which created the A and C shares. The goal was an attempt by the co-founders of Google, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, along with company chairman Eric Schmidt, to retain as much control of the company as possible. A shares get one vote, C shares get none and B shares get 10 votes.
- With 288 million A shares outstanding, and 52 million B shares, that means the B share holders get 520 million votes, or 64% of the voting power. The A shares trade at a slight premium, perhaps 2%, which shows that the market does place some value on voting power.
- Google plans to continue issuing C shares to finance acquisitions and reward employees
B shares
Brin and Page owned some 46 million B shares at the end of January 2015, but they announced a plan to sell some of that. In March 2015 there were some 52 million B shares outstanding, but Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings showed that Brin converted a total of 48,998 B shares to A shares towards the end of April, to be sold over a period of time. This reduces his voting control of the company somewhat.