History and Early Years
– Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University.
– The original search engine was called BackRub and analyzed the relationships among websites.
– The algorithm PageRank was developed to determine a website’s relevance based on backlinks.
– The name was changed to Google, a misspelling of the word ‘googol,’ signifying the search engine’s ability to provide vast amounts of information.
– Google was initially funded by a $100,000 investment from Andy Bechtolsheim.
– The original lead programmer, Scott Hassan, left before Google was officially founded.
– Alan Steremberg and Hassan were critical to the development of Google.
– The first paper about Google, describing PageRank and the prototype search engine, was co-authored by Rajeev Motwani and Terry Winograd.
– PageRank was influenced by RankDex, an algorithm developed by Robin Li.
– The original homepage of Google had a simple design due to the founders’ limited HTML experience.
Funding
– Google received an initial investment of $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim.
– David Cheriton and Andy Bechtolsheim provided additional investments of $250,000.
– Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, and Ram Shriram also invested in Google.
– The total funding from investors, friends, and family allowed Google to open its original shop in Menlo Park, California.
– The funding round was extended to include Jeff Bezos’ investment after a meeting with the founders.
Products and Services
– Google offers a wide range of products and services beyond its search engine, including Gmail, Google Maps, Google Cloud, Google Chrome, YouTube, Google Workspace, Android, Google Drive, Google Translate, Google Photos, Google Meet, Google Nest, Google Pixel, YouTube Music, YouTube TV, Google Assistant, TensorFlow, and TPU.
– Discontinued Google products include Stadia, Glass, Google+, Reader, Play Music, Nexus, Hangouts, and Inbox by Gmail.
– Google’s ventures outside of internet services and consumer electronics include Sycamore (quantum computing), Waymo (self-driving cars), Sidewalk Labs (smart cities), and Google Deepmind (transformer models).
– Google and YouTube are the most visited websites worldwide, followed by Facebook and X (formerly Twitter).
– Google holds dominant market positions in various categories, including search engine, mapping and navigation, email, office suite, video sharing, photo and cloud storage, mobile operating system, web browser, ML framework, and AI virtual assistant.
Impact and Recognition
– Google is considered one of the most powerful companies in the world.
– It is recognized as one of the world’s most valuable brands.
– Google is ranked second on Forbes’ list of most valuable brands and fourth by Interbrand.
– The company has faced criticism regarding privacy concerns, tax avoidance, censorship, search neutrality, antitrust, and abuse of its monopoly position.
– Google’s market dominance, data collection, and technological advantages in artificial intelligence contribute to its recognition and impact.
Growth, IPO, Controversies, and Antitrust Investigation
– In March 1999, Google moved its offices to Palo Alto, California.
– Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords in the next year.
– Advertisements on Google were solely text-based to maintain an uncluttered page design.
– In June 2000, Google became the default search engine provider for Yahoo!
– Google bought its office complex, known as the Googleplex, in 2003.
– Google became a public company on August 19, 2004, through an initial public offering.
– The IPO raised $1.67 billion and gave Google a market capitalization of over $23 billion.
– Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock in 2006.
– In 2013, Google acquired Waze for $966 million.
– Google faced controversies related to employee issues, sexual harassment, and censorship.
– In 2019, Google faced an antitrust investigation by the United States Department of Justice.
– In 2020 and 2021, Google faced outages, threats to close off access in Australia, and an antitrust lawsuit filed by ten US states.
Google LLC (/ˈɡuːɡəl/ ⓘ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on artificial intelligence, online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, and consumer electronics. It has been referred to as "the most powerful company in the world" and as one of the world's most valuable brands due to its market dominance, data collection, and technological advantages in the field of artificial intelligence. Alongside Amazon, Apple Inc., Meta, and Microsoft, Google's parent company Alphabet Inc. is one of the five Big Tech companies.
 The Google logo used since 2015 | |
.jpg) Google's headquarters, the Googleplex | |
| Formerly | Google Inc. (1998–2017) |
|---|---|
| Type | Subsidiary |
| NASDAQ: GOOGL, GOOG | |
| Industry | |
| Founded | September 4, 1998 in Menlo Park, California, United States |
| Founders | |
| Headquarters | Googleplex, , U.S. |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | |
| Products | |
Number of employees | 139,995 (2021)  |
| Parent | Alphabet Inc. |
| Subsidiaries | |
| ASN | |
| Website | about |
| Footnotes / references | |
Google was founded on September 4, 1998, by American computer scientists Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were PhD students at Stanford University in California. Together they own about 14% of its publicly listed shares and control 56% of its stockholder voting power through super-voting stock. The company went public via an initial public offering (IPO) in 2004. In 2015, Google was reorganized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Google is Alphabet's largest subsidiary and is a holding company for Alphabet's internet properties and interests. Sundar Pichai was appointed CEO of Google on October 24, 2015, replacing Larry Page, who became the CEO of Alphabet. On December 3, 2019, Pichai also became the CEO of Alphabet.
The company has since rapidly grown to offer a multitude of products and services beyond Google Search, many of which hold dominant market positions. These products address a wide range of use cases, including email (Gmail), navigation (Waze & Maps), cloud computing (Cloud), web browsing (Chrome), video sharing (YouTube), productivity (Workspace), operating systems (Android), cloud storage (Drive), language translation (Translate), photo storage (Photos), video calling (Meet), smart home (Nest), smartphones (Pixel), wearable technology (Pixel Watch & Fitbit), music streaming (YouTube Music), video on demand (YouTube TV), artificial intelligence (Google Assistant & Bard), machine learning APIs (TensorFlow), AI chips (TPU), and more. Discontinued Google products include gaming (Stadia), Glass, Google+, Reader, Play Music, Nexus, Hangouts, and Inbox by Gmail.
Google's other ventures outside of Internet services and consumer electronics include quantum computing (Sycamore), self-driving cars (Waymo, formerly the Google Self-Driving Car Project), smart cities (Sidewalk Labs), and transformer models (Google Deepmind).
Google and YouTube are the two most visited websites worldwide followed by Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter). Google is also the largest search engine, mapping and navigation application, email provider, office suite, video sharing platform, photo and cloud storage provider, mobile operating system, web browser, ML framework, and AI virtual assistant provider in the world as measured by market share. On the list of most valuable brands, Google is ranked second by Forbes and fourth by Interbrand. It has received significant criticism involving issues such as privacy concerns, tax avoidance, censorship, search neutrality, antitrust and abuse of its monopoly position.
