Google celebrated its 25th birthday on September 27, 2023. An American multinational tech company’s journey had humble beginnings and has been nothing short of remarkable.
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The Birth of Google
As doctoral students in Stanford University’s computer science program in the mid-’90s, Larry Page and Sergey Brin crossed paths. They had no idea that their collaboration would change the world’s digital landscape forever. In the beginning, they began a research project called “BackRub,” which eventually became Google.
The link structure of the World Wide Web was explored mathematically by Larry Page. A revolutionary search algorithm he developed paved the way for Google to become the search giant it is today. ‘Googol’ is a mathematical term that denotes a very large number and inspired the name Google, which was born in 1998.
Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, presented Google Inc. with a $100,000 check in August 1998. A rented garage in Menlo Park, California, became their first “office” after Page and Brin moved out of their Stanford dorm room. As they worked to realize their vision of a sorted internet, the office was their home for the next few years.
The Expansion of Google’s Products and Services
There is much more to Google than its search engine today. Over the past few years, Google has become an integral part of billions of people’s daily lives through products like YouTube, Android, Gmail, and Google Maps.
When Google became Yahoo’s default search engine in 2000, its influence in the tech world spread rapidly. Google’s online advertising dominance began with the launch of AdWords in October 2000.
The next big announcement came when Google announced Gmail would offer a staggering 1GB of storage capacity. This made Gmail an essential part of daily life, pushing back competitors such as YahooMail and Microsoft’s Hotmail. August of that year was the company’s public offering.
Search and email were just the beginning of Google’s innovation. The company entered the mobile market with the acquisition of Android and the launch of Google Talk in 2005. Google entered the online video market with the acquisition of YouTube in 2006.
In 2007, Google acquired DoubleClick, expanding its influence in online advertising. In 2007, the introduction of universal search allowed users to access various types of content.
Introducing the Chrome web browser in 2008, the first Android phone was released by Google and released by T-Mobile. Sundar Pichai became CEO of Google in 2012, following the launch of Google Glass and the acquisition of mapping startup Waze.
The Future of Google
The CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, wrote a blog post earlier this month about the company’s future, specifically its opportunities with AI. In each and every product segment, Google is competing against other powerhouses in its next quarter-century. Google is already among the top names in AI, and this is one of the biggest opportunities it’s looking to take advantage of. To remain at the top of the list, Google will have to continue to innovate and make an impact in the next 25 years.
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