Arm Holdings vs Google: Founders, CEOs and History

Company facts

Founders

CEOs and their tenures

Timeline: Arm Holdings and Google side by side

1. 1985Arm Holdings

   ARM1 Processor First Silicon

   The first ARM processor, ARM1, reached silicon at Acorn Computers, designed by Sophie Wilson, who wrote the instruction set, and Steve Furber, who led the hardware.

2. 1990Arm Holdings

   Arm Founded as an Acorn, Apple and VLSI Joint Venture

   The company was incorporated in November 1990 as Widelogic Limited and renamed Advanced RISC Machines Limited on December 3, 1990, structured as a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple Computer and VLSI Technology.

3. 1993Arm Holdings

   Apple Newton Ships with ARM610 and Arm Turns Profitable

   Apple launched the Newton MessagePad, powered by an ARM610 processor, the first significant consumer product built on an ARM-based chip.

4. 1998Arm Holdings

   Dual Listing on the London Stock Exchange and Nasdaq

   Arm floated on April 17, 1998, trading in London and New York on the same day after being priced at 575p a share by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Cazenove. The company was renamed ARM Holdings at the listing and joined the FTSE 100.

5. 1998Google

   Google Founded

   Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google after developing PageRank at Stanford University. The search engine ranked web pages by link authority, which made results feel more relevant than portal-era competitors.

6. 2000Google

   AdWords Launch

   Google launched AdWords in 2000 and connected advertising to search intent. Businesses could pay to appear near relevant queries, eventually through auction-based performance advertising.

7. 2001Arm Holdings

   Warren East Becomes Chief Executive

   Warren East was appointed chief executive in October 2001, succeeding Robin Saxby. Over the following twelve years Arm established the Cortex CPU and Mali GPU families and became the standard architecture for smartphones.

8. 2004Arm Holdings

   Artisan Components Acquired for $913 Million

   Arm bought Artisan Components, a designer of physical IP such as standard cell libraries, memory compilers and input and output cells, extending Arm from processor designs into the foundry-specific building blocks needed to fabricate a chip.

9. 2004Google

   Google IPO

   Google went public in 2004 using an auction process and priced 19,605,052 shares at $85, raising about $1.67B. The IPO gave the company capital for hiring, data centers, acquisitions, and global expansion.

10. 2005Google

    Android Acquisition

    Google acquired Android in 2005 to secure a role in mobile operating systems before smartphones became the main internet device. Android later gave Google global reach through manufacturers such as Samsung and many others.

11. 2006Google

    YouTube Acquisition

    Google closed the YouTube acquisition in 2006 for stock valued at $1.65B. The deal gave Google a user-generated video platform, creator ecosystem, and advertising surface outside text search before online video had a mature business model.

12. 2007Arm Holdings

    iPhone Launch Accelerates Smartphone Royalty Growth

    Apple launched the original iPhone with a Samsung-manufactured application processor built on an ARM11 core.

13. 2008Google

    DoubleClick Acquisition

    Google acquired DoubleClick for $3.1B to expand its advertising infrastructure beyond search. The deal strengthened display advertising, ad serving, and publisher relationships. It helped Google build a broader ad-tech stack.

14. 2013Arm Holdings

    Simon Segars Succeeds Warren East as CEO

    Arm announced in March 2013 that Warren East would retire and that president Simon Segars, who joined Arm in 1991 as one of its early engineers, would become chief executive from July 1, 2013.

15. 2014Google

    DeepMind Acquisition

    Google acquired DeepMind in 2014 to deepen its artificial intelligence research bench. DeepMind later became known for AlphaGo and other breakthroughs in reinforcement learning and scientific AI.

16. 2015Google

    Alphabet Restructuring

    Google restructured into Alphabet Inc. In 2015, separating core Google from Other Bets. The move gave investors clearer visibility into Search, YouTube, Android, and Cloud economics while preserving room for Waymo, Verily, Calico, and X.

17. 2016Arm Holdings

    SoftBank Acquires Arm for ~$32.1 billion (24.3 Billion Pounds)

    SoftBank Group agreed on July 18, 2016 to acquire Arm Holdings for 24.3 billion pounds, about $31.4 billion in cash, and completed the deal on September 5, 2016.

18. 2019Google

    Sundar Pichai Becomes Alphabet CEO

    Sundar Pichai became CEO of Alphabet in 2019 after Larry Page and Sergey Brin stepped back from daily operations. Pichai inherited a company facing cloud competition, antitrust scrutiny, privacy pressure, and rising AI expectations.

19. 2020Arm Holdings

    Nvidia Agrees to Buy Arm for $40 Billion

    Nvidia announced an agreement to acquire Arm from SoftBank for about $40 billion in cash and stock.

20. 2022Arm Holdings

    Nvidia Deal Collapses and Rene Haas Becomes CEO

    Nvidia and SoftBank terminated the acquisition in February 2022 after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission sued to block it, the UK Competition and Markets Authority recommended against it and EU regulators opened a Phase II review.

21. 2023Arm Holdings

    Nasdaq IPO Prices at $51 and Raises $4.87 Billion

    Arm listed on Nasdaq on September 14, 2023 under the ticker ARM, pricing American depositary shares at $51 and raising about $4.87 billion at a valuation of roughly $54.5 billion. It was the largest U.S.

22. 2023Google

    Google DeepMind Integration

    Alphabet combined major AI research efforts under Google DeepMind to accelerate frontier model development. The move followed competitive pressure from OpenAI and Microsoft.

23. 2024Arm Holdings

    Fiscal 2024 Revenue Reaches $3.23 Billion

    Arm reported fiscal 2024 revenue of $3,233 million, up 21%, made up of $1,802 million of royalty revenue and $1,431 million of license and other revenue, with net income of $306 million.

24. 2025Arm Holdings

    Artisan Foundation IP Business Sold to Cadence

    Arm completed the sale of its Artisan foundation IP business, the standard cell libraries, memory compilers and general-purpose input and output blocks it had built up since the 2004 Artisan acquisition, to Cadence Design Systems on August 26, 2025 under an ag…

25. 2025Arm Holdings

    Lumex Client Platform Launched for On-Device AI

    In September 2025 Arm launched Lumex, its compute subsystem platform for flagship smartphones and next-generation PCs, pairing C1 CPUs and G1 GPUs with Scalable Matrix Extension version 2 for on-device AI.

26. 2025Arm Holdings

    Fiscal 2025 Revenue Passes $4 Billion

    Arm reported fiscal 2025 revenue of $4,007 million, up 24%, with royalty revenue of $2,168 million and license and other revenue of $1,839 million, and net income of $792 million.

27. 2025Google

    FY2025 Revenue Tops $402B

    Alphabet reported FY2025 revenue of $402.836B and net income of $132.170B. The milestone showed that Search ads, YouTube, Cloud, and subscriptions kept scaling despite regulatory and AI disruption concerns.

28. 2026Arm Holdings

    Arm Launches the AGI CPU, Its First Production Silicon

    At the Arm Everywhere event in San Francisco on March 24, 2026, Arm introduced the Arm AGI CPU, the first chip it designed and sells as finished silicon rather than licensable IP.

29. 2026Arm Holdings

    Fiscal 2026 Revenue Reaches $4.92 Billion

    Arm reported fiscal 2026 revenue of $4,920 million, up 23% and a third consecutive year of growth above 20% since the IPO, with royalty revenue of $2,613 million, license and other revenue of $2,307 million and net income of $904 million.

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