The History of Google: From BackRub to the Googleplex

Google is one of the most recognized and valuable companies in the world, known for its search engine and innovative products and services. It was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two Stanford University Ph.D. students who were frustrated with the inefficiencies of traditional search engines. Since then, Google has grown into a multinational corporation with operations in many countries around the world, offering a wide range of products and services, including search, advertising, cloud computing, and hardware. In this article, we will explore the history of Google from its inception to the present day.

Founding of Google

The story of Google begins in the mid-1990s, when Larry Page and Sergey Brin met as graduate students at Stanford University. Page was studying computer science, while Brin was studying mathematics. They bonded over their shared interest in exploring the mathematical properties of the web and improving the efficiency of internet search.

At the time, internet search engines were largely based on keyword matching, which often produced irrelevant or spammy results. Page and Brin believed that there was a better way to organize and rank web pages based on their relevance and popularity. They began working on a search algorithm called PageRank, which evaluated the relevance of web pages based on the number and quality of links pointing to them.

In 1996, Page and Brin started working on their research project, which they called BackRub. They used a network of computers to crawl the web and index web pages, using their PageRank algorithm to rank them by relevance. BackRub was eventually renamed Google, a play on the word "googol," which is a mathematical term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.

Google launched as a beta test in September 1998, and it quickly gained popularity among internet users. The search engine was simple and fast, and it provided more relevant results than other search engines at the time. Google's popularity grew through word of mouth, and the company began to attract attention from investors and tech companies.

Early Growth and Expansion

In the early days of Google, the company was run out of a garage in Menlo Park, California. The company's first employees included Craig Silverstein, who was Google's first employee and now serves as the company's director of technology, and Susan Wojcicki, who later became CEO of YouTube.

In 1999, Google received its first major investment, a $25 million funding round led by Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins. The company also began to hire more employees and move into larger office spaces. By the end of the year, Google had more than 60 employees and had moved into a larger office in Mountain View, California.

In 2000, Google launched AdWords, a platform for placing ads on Google search results pages. AdWords was a major milestone for the company, as it created a new revenue stream that would help fund its future growth. AdWords allowed businesses of all sizes to place targeted ads on Google's search results pages, using keywords and other targeting options to reach their desired audience.

In 2001, Google moved into its current headquarters in Mountain View, California, also known as the Googleplex. The Googleplex is a sprawling campus that includes dozens of buildings and features like a beach volleyball court, a bowling alley, and free bicycles for employees to ride around the campus.

Google continued to expand its offerings, introducing products like Google Maps, Google News, and Google Docs. In 2004, Google went public with an initial public offering (IPO) that raised $1.67 billion and made many of its employees and investors very wealthy. The IPO also helped to solidify Google's position as one of the most valuable and influential companies in the world.