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Google
History
Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford University in 1995. By 1996, they had built a search engine (initially called BackRub) that used links to determine the importance of individual Webpages.
Larry and Sergey named the search engine they built “Google,” a play on the word “googol,” the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. Google Inc. was born in 1998, when Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote a check for $100,000 to that entity-which until then didn’t exist.
In 2000, we introduced AdWords, a self-service program for creating online ad campaigns. Today our advertising solutions, which include display, mobile and video ads as well as the simple text ads we introduced more than a decade ago, help thousands of businesses grow and become successful.
On April Fools’ Day in 2004, we launched Gmail. Our approach to email included features like speedy search, huge amounts of storage and threaded messages. Our Initial Public Offering of 19,605,052 shares of Class A common stock took place on Wall Street on August 18, 2004.
We acquired digital mapping company Keyhole in 2004, and launched Google Maps and Google Earth in 2005. Today Maps also features live traffic, transit directions and street-level imagery, and Earth lets you explore the ocean and the moon.
In 2006, we acquired online video sharing site YouTube. Today 60 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute. Cat videos, citizen journalism, political candidacy and double rainbows have never been the same.
Amidst rumors of a “Gphone,” we announced Android-an open platform for mobile devices-and the Open Handset Alliance, in 2007.
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