The History of Google

This article was written by Phin Upham

Google, a play on the mathematical term “googol,” began when Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford. Brin was assigned to lead Page around the campus, and the two hit it off on that first day. By the time he was on campus to study, Page was working with Brin on a search engine that lived on Stanford’s servers.

They register the domain for Google.com on September 15th of 1997.

They are recognized as the top search engine on the Web by 1998. PC Magazine is quoted as saying that Google has “an uncanny knack for returning extremely relevant results.” At the time, they were working out of the garage of a neighbor, but they quickly overgrow that workspace as the hype begins to build for the company.

In August of 1999, they move to their first office in Mountain View, a space they still occupy today.

Google is the premier search giant on the Web, holding the majority market share for search traffic on the Internet. The company has an extensive advertising program that incorporates its ads into its search results and on Web pages.

They also run a variety of side projects, from their fiber-optic Internet connection to their alternative energy programs. The company has even patented self driving cars, which it tests extensively throughout California.

Google is also known for its Doodles, which all began when they took a company trip to Burning Man in August of 1998. They included a small figure of the burning man in their logo for that week, indicating that the team was out of the office.


Phin Upham

About the Author: Phin Upham is an investor at a family office/hedgefund, where he focuses on special situation illiquid investing. Before this position, Phin Upham was working at Morgan Stanley in the Media & Technology group. You may contact Phin on his Phin Upham website.

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