Multiple news outlets reported on Friday that Google’s enormous pile of cash could eclipse $100 billion dollars by the end of 2016. While that may seem far away to some, it’s barely over two years, which in the tech world can move very quickly. Google’s cash reserve is earning less than 1 per cent a year according to top ranked Wall Street analyst Carlos Kirjner. Obviously investors would earn better returns on their money elsewhere if Google doesn’t do something about this mounting problem. Google attests that they need the cash to stay nimble and compete with the likes of Apple who also had an enormous mountain of cash before activist investors like Carl Icahn and David Einhorn started to demand that Apple’s board make some kind of plan to get cash back to investors. That plan calls for $130 billion dollars in both dividends and stock buybacks according to the Australian.com. The company’s cash continues to mount. Lenovo just closed the $2.9 billion dollar acquisition of Motorola from Google who had purchased the Illinois based company in 2012. That adds even more cash to the pot. There doesn’t seem to be a plan to return cash to investors right now. A Google spokesperson has confirmed that having a lot of cash on hand is part of Google’s current strategy. “As we’ve said many times, we consider our cash to be a key strategic asset.It allows us to be nimble and move quickly in a very young, competitive and constantly changing industry,” the spokesman said. Google is not in the same position as Apple when it comes to activist shareholders that Apple was in. Google has protected itself from shareholders because special classes of shares give the cofounders more voting control than other shareholders over important company decisions. For now it appears that Google will continue to keep large amounts of cash on it’s balance sheet. Kirjner believes that something needs to be done in the next 24 months.