Google 101 Facts
12-35 Tell me about Google Technology
The glorious history of Google
starts with two students Larry Page 23 and Sergey Brin 24, who were pursuing their Ph.D. at Stanford University, when they got the idea to create a new search engine. Supposedly, Larry Page and Sergey Brin did not like each other initially. They thought they have nothing in common, but with time they learned life lessons together, they went on to become best friends for life. This was perhaps a rather strange way of starting a venture as big as Google.
Larry Page, co-founder of Google, stepped down as CEO of Alphabet Inc. (Google's parent company) in December 2019 and took on the role of Alphabet's CEO. Sergey Brin, the other co-founder of Google, stepped down as President of Alphabet Inc. in the same year. However, they both still remain involved in the company as board members and shareholders. Sundar Pichai took over as CEO of both Google and Alphabet. Pichai had been the CEO of Google prior to the restructuring, and he continued to lead the company in its ongoing efforts to develop innovative technologies and improve its products and services for users around the world.
The biggest irony of Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s life is:
that there original goal for these two enthusiastic PH.D. Students was to to sell their Google search idea for $1 million to whoever was willing to purchase it. However, luckily for them (and us?), nobody turned up ...
Did you know that Google was originally named Googol?
The name failed when Larry Page and Sergey Brin received their first $100,000 paycheck in the name of Google Inc. and they had to run and create a bank account for the name, so that they could cash it. Therefore, the naming ceremony was nothing but an accident.
Google started its hiring process by recruiting Craig Silverstein
as their first employee, without their current sophisticated HR team. Craig was Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s fellow student at Stanford. (Craig was third employee of Google. He has now resigned from Google and has joined Khan Academy, an online learning site offering collaborative videos and projects.)
google.stanford.edu and z.stanford.edu, when it was in the testing phase and was working under the website of Stanford university.
In the year 1997, Yahoo rejected an offer to buy Google for
$1 million and now the company is worth $20 billion, whereas Google has grown up to $200 Billion. This is perhaps one of the most interesting financial losses of the IT industry. (see: google current share price)
By December 1998, Google was named
the search engine of choice in the Top 100 Web Sites, as shown by PC Magazine. In 2021 Google was rated as the best search engine, followed by Bing and then Yahoo. Google received high marks for its accurate and relevant search results, as well as its user-friendly interface and wide range of features. However, each search engine was rated based on various criteria, and the rankings may change from year to year based on updates and improvements to each engine.
In the February of 1999, the Google Company
moved out of its garage office to its first mountain-view office, with just eight employees. This number is incomparable to the current staff size of Google.
Lego Computers: It is hard to believe that
there was a time when the founders of Google were short on funds and used economic ways to save money. The very first Google’s storage rack that stored ten 40 GB hard disks was made up of Lego. Can you believe that the most royal company of the modern times had such a humble start? More info
Why is Google is sometimes nicknamed the “Mountain View Chocolate Factory”.
That's not because its gives its employees lot of chocolates (although it does) it is used as a comparison of Google to Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory - because of a similarity in the cultures of Wonka’s factory and the Googleplex who both employ slightly strange eccentric but dedicated “engineers”.
