Who is the creator of google. History of the creation of Yandex and Google

Google LLC.
Type Public company
Exchange listing NASDAQ: GOOG
Base 4 September
Founders Sergey Brin And Larry Page
Location USA USA: Mountain View, California
Key figures Larry Page - founder
Sergey Brin - founder
Sundar Pichai - CEO
Industry Internet
Products see List of Google services and tools
Equity ▲ $92.137 billion (2017)
Turnover ▼ $59.097 billion (2017)
Operating profit ▼ $14.242 billion (2017)
Net profit ▲ $14.842 billion (2017)
Assets ▲ $131.133 billion (2014)
Number of employees ▲ 85,050 (Q1 2018)
Parent company Alphabet Inc.
Affiliated companies YouTube, DoubleClick, On2 Technologies, Google Voice, Picnik, Aardvark, AdMob
Website google.com​(English)
Google on Wikimedia Commons

Google operates more than a million servers in data centers around the world and processes more than one billion search queries and 24 petabytes of user data every day. Google's rapid growth since its founding has led to the emergence of a large number of products that are not directly related to the company's main product - the search engine. Google has online products such as the Gmail email service and the Google+ social network. The company also has desktop products such as the Google Chrome browser, the photo program Picasa and the instant messaging program Hangouts. In addition, Google is developing the Android mobile operating system, used on a large number of smartphones, as well as the Google Chrome OS operating system and Google Glass devices. According to Alexa, Google's main site - google.com - is the most visited site on the Internet, and numerous international Google sites (google.co.in, google.co.uk, etc.) are in the top hundred in terms of traffic, as are Several other Google service sites are YouTube, Blogger and Orkut. In May 2011, the number of unique monthly visitors to Google websites exceeded 1 billion for the first time.

According to BrandZ, Google is the most powerful brand in the world, and according to Brand-Finance, the most valuable brand in the world in 2011. In 2011, Google was recognized as the company with the best reputation in the United States, ahead of Microsoft, Sony and other companies. The dominant position of Google's services in the market has led to criticism of the company over issues of privacy, copyright and censorship.

On April 23, 2018, 118 out of 1002 known IP addresses used by Google services were blocked in Russia. The domains google.com, google.ru, YouTube services, reCAPTCHA and AdSense have become unavailable to users in different parts of Russia.

Story

Management

In July 2001, at the invitation of the company's founders, Eric Schmidt took over the positions of Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of Google.

On April 4, 2011, Larry Page became chief executive officer. Eric Schmidt remains chairman of the board of directors of Google.

As of June 20, 2010, Page, Brin and Eric Schmidt owned approximately 91% of the Class B shares, which collectively provide holders with 68% of the voting power. The triumvirate has a decisive influence in resolving all issues within the competence of shareholders.

In 2015, as a result of the reorganization of Google and the creation of the Alphabet holding company, Sundar Pichai became the CEO of the company.

Shareholders

Corporate culture

In 2013, Google topped Fortune's annual list of the 100 Best Employers in the United States for the fourth time.

Google had a “20 percent” program, under which engineers could spend 20% of their time on projects that were not part of their job responsibilities. However, since 2011, the company has embarked on a path to becoming as efficient as possible and has abandoned this program.

Hiring

When hiring new employees, they are assessed, among other things, for their ability to work in the existing corporate culture, in particular in a flat organizational structure and a rapidly changing environment. The successful candidate must be talented, creative and passionate, ethical, open-minded and able to impress without a business suit.

Millions of resumes submitted online are first processed automatically, identifying those who could potentially be a good fit for the company.

In an effort to attract talent, the company hosts a Google Code Jam tournament among college students. At this tournament, programmers compete in solving problems against the clock. The 15 finalists are invited to Google headquarters for the final round.

In January 2018, former technician James Damore filed a lawsuit accusing Google of discriminating against employees based on skin color and political views. James Damore himself was fired after making allegations of gender inequality.

Project "Oxygen"

Google spent two years conducting a large-scale study called Project Oxygen, the goal of which was to develop its own model of a good leader. As a result, in March 2011, the following most important qualities of a good leader, according to Google, were published:

Services and tools

Charity

In 2004, Google created a non-profit charitable offshoot - Google.org (Google Foundation), with a start-up capital of about $1 billion. The main activities of this organization are to inform society and help solve problems in the areas of climate change, global health and poverty. One of his first projects is work in the field of hybrid and electric vehicles.

In 2007, Google became a sponsor and active participant in several gay pride parades in San Francisco, New York, Dublin and Madrid.

In 2008, Google introduced the “10^100 Project,” in which everyone can propose ideas and then jointly choose the one that will change the world and help as many people as possible. At the start of voting, more than 150 thousand ideas were proposed from people from 170 countries. 16 groups of ideas took part in the voting, from which up to 5 were selected, to help in the implementation of which Google allocated $10 million.

Google and society

Violation of the right to privacy

Google first began having problems with human rights violations in 2005. When creating Google Earth maps, images of the roof of the American White House were used, which poses a threat to the national security of the United States. The American public was deeply outraged that potential terrorists were given a chance to closely examine the White House rooftop defense systems.

The next high-profile scandal associated with Google was a lawsuit against this company by the American Boring family from Pennsylvania. In 2008, the Boring couple accused Google of violating their privacy. Images of a couple's house and swimming pool were used to create global virtual city maps on Google Street View. The Borings immediately filed a lawsuit and demanded $25,000 from Google as compensation for moral damages. However, their first claim was not satisfied. However, the litigation continued, and in 2010, the Borings received compensation from the company in the amount of $1. However, Google representatives said: “Unfortunately, absolute privacy does not exist in the modern world, because there are satellite images that take pictures of everything, regardless of the signs “private territory.” However, the company's specialists can remove images from their server if they are asked to do so privately.

The American National Law and Policy Center (NLPC) also spoke out against Google. As proof of the service's violation of private rights, members of the center provided information about one of Google's executives, collected using the company's services in less than half an hour - images of his house, license plates of cars parked near him, the name of a company engaged in landscaping his territory, and even the name of a security company , whose clients are his neighbors.

Due to the large number of claims against the company, Eric Schmidt stated in 2009: “If you don’t want anyone to find out unnecessary information about you, then first of all, don’t do anything reprehensible. […] In fact, search engines, including Google, retain this information for a period of time.We are all subject to the authorities of the United States, so it is possible that we may have to disclose information to government officials.

In 2010, a new scandal involving Google received great public attention. It became known that while working on the Street View service, the company scanned the IP addresses and passwords of citizens. While filming the streets and squares of different cities from special vehicles equipped with video cameras, Google specialists also scanned the signal of wireless Wi-Fi networks. As a result, the company received passwords and other confidential information necessary to log into the email of individuals and legal entities. Google representatives agreed that they made a big mistake, thus violating the right to privacy, and apologized. However, they stated that they were not aware of the problem until the German authorities approached them with complaints in this regard. Google experts assured that the private information received was not used in the search engine.

In the summer of 2013, thanks to former American intelligence officer Edward Snowden, it became known that the American government was paying Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook millions of dollars for disclosing information about Internet users (as part of the PRISM program). The costs, according to the documents, were covered by a division of the National Security Agency known as the Special Sources Division. In response, Google's chief lawyer, David Drummond, published an open letter on the company's blog addressed to the US Attorney General and the Director of the FBI, in which he asked for permission to publish detailed information about government requests, including requests based on the Surveillance Act, in a regular transparency report. over the activities of foreign intelligence services (FISA). According to Drummond, responses to these requests did not provide the US government with direct access to user data.

Currently, Google is seriously criticized for human rights violations associated with the implementation of the Google Glass project. Wearing Google glasses is already prohibited in American movie theaters, casinos and strip clubs. Their owners fear that visitors wearing such glasses will record what is happening on video. In addition, the decision to ban glasses may soon be made by American banks and park directorates. Google representatives have not yet commented on this situation.

On August 5, 2014, Google informed US law enforcement agencies that one of the users of its subsidiary mail service Gmail had stored pornographic photographs of children, after which the user was arrested.

Participation in the affairs of foreign countries

Some Google experts took part in the events of the Arab Spring, advocating for democratic values ​​and the protection of human rights. Thus, Google's marketing director for the Middle East and North Africa, Wail Ghonim, advocated the overthrow of the Hosni Mubarak regime in Egypt during the unrest in the country in 2011. He created a page on the social network Facebook, where he condemned the violence against Egyptian citizens by the ruling government and coordinated the actions of the demonstrators. Ghonim described the Egyptian protest movement as a "Facebook revolution" and noted that the Internet played an extremely important role in it.

In addition, shortly after the events of the Arab Spring, Google representatives announced that they were working to facilitate access to the company's information and products in the Middle East and North Africa. In this regard, the American company's goal is to provide access to even more of its products in Arabic. In 2011, the company launched an Arabic version of Google Voice and Google+ and featured two museums located in Qatar (the Museum of Islamic Art and the Mathaf Arab Museum of Contemporary Art) in the +Art Project, and in 2012 invited the President of Tunisia to speak via the Google+ Hangout On video broadcasting service Air. Google also has serious complaints against the Chinese leadership in connection with attempts to limit the access of Chinese citizens to information on the Internet.

To google

Due to the popularity of the search engine, a neologism appeared in the English language to google or to Google(analogue in Russian computer slang - google), used to refer to searching for information on the Internet using Google. It is with this definition that the verb is included in the most authoritative dictionaries of the English language -

The mobile version of Google Docs has received a text editing function.

Company Google Inc. founded in 1998 (date of registration - September 4, 1998) by Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Brin and Page met at Stanford University and began working together on a project that later became Google. According to the company's founders, "Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it accessible and useful to everyone."

Today the company has more than ten thousand employees worldwide. Brin is President of Technology and Page is President of Products.

Eric Schmidt, chairman and chief executive officer, joined Google from Novell in 2001. Under his leadership, Google significantly expanded its infrastructure and product portfolio. His extensive work experience has prepared him well to lead the development of user-centric technology solutions. Together with the company's founders and other members of the management team, Schmidt is responsible for the company's technical and business strategies.

Google's headquarters are located at 1600 Amphitheater Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043.

One of the most important areas of the company’s activities is the delivery of search results (and other information) in real time.

In addition to the search engine, Google provides users with various online services. Among the most popular are Gmail, Google Docs, Google Maps and others.

The company owns a popular video hosting service YouTube and the online photo editor Picasa, which allows you to process photos and create web albums from them.

Google's email service with virtually unlimited message storage, internal search, and smart anti-spam protection. It has a standard mode and a basic HTML version, which switches to automatically when logging into Gmail using a browser that is not fully supported.

Google Docs

Online application for remote collaboration on documents. Google Docs allows you to add Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML or plain text files, create documents from scratch, and upload your own Internet documents; edit documents online simultaneously with any users you choose and invite other people to view those documents; publish documents on the Internet; Send documents via email as attachments.

Google Docs also allows you to work with tables, presentations and illustrations.

Google Maps

A Google service that offers user-friendly map search technology and local business information including address, contact information and driving directions. You can work with maps in three display options: satellite photographs, schematic maps, and a hybrid of the first two maps. Searching for a point by latitude and longitude is supported.

The service also includes the Google Traffic service, Google Places, mobile versions of maps, a custom map designer, etc. Using Google Street View, you can explore 3D panoramic images of various locations around the world.

Google Earth

Google Earth is a client installed on the user's computer. It lets you travel the world using a virtual globe and view satellite photos, maps, landscapes, 3D buildings and more. Google Earth also allows you to virtually explore the sky, dive into the ocean, walk on the Moon and fly to Mars.

What is Google?

A googol is a mathematical term for one followed by 100 zeros. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of the American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was first described in the book Mathematics and the Imagination by Kasner and James Newman.

The material was prepared based on information from the official website

In 1998, countless users of the World Wide Web finally received the long-awaited effective search engine, namely, this year Google Inc. was officially registered.

Who among the multi-million army of Internet lovers has not heard of Google Who hasn't used this wonderful search engine at least once? Surely there are none. But not everyone knows what exactly the word “ Google" Word " Google" comes from the mathematical term " googol"(a number consisting of one followed by one hundred zeros). Of course, this designation is purely conditional, because in the entire Universe there is nothing equal in quantity googoloo. However, computer Google created just two human units. They are two peers, born in different parts of the world, but, fortunately, they met in the right place at the right time. Due to their innate modesty, their first and last names are mostly unknown to the general public, despite the worldwide fame of their amazing brainchild. So, meet: Sergey Brin And Larry Page- nice guys, computer geniuses and ordinary billionaires.

Sergey Brin (Russian roots)

Sergey Brin born on August 21, 1973 in Moscow. His parents belonged to the Jewish technical intelligentsia: his mother Evgenia was an engineer, and his father Mikhail was a gifted mathematician. But due to the latent anti-Semitism that reigned in the Soviet country in those years, Brin Sr. was unable to move up the career ladder. Therefore, when in the late 70s, Jewish families began to be released from the USSR abroad for permanent residence, the Brinov family was one of the first to leave the “country of developed socialism.” Later, Brin Sr. said about it this way: “Everyone loves their homeland, and we loved it too, but not all love is mutual”... The family’s path lay in the USA, where Mikhail had many mathematical acquaintances. Thus, Seryozha has already turned six years old on American soil.

The Breens adapted to the new place in different ways: the head of the family soon got a job as a teacher at the University of Maryland in the town of College Park; his wife became a scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Agency; Grandma had the hardest time - for example, having to take a driver's license test left her in a real shock; and Seryozhka was the easiest of all - due to his young age and easy character. Seryozha inherited his father's talents, and therefore he was immensely bored at school: he considered the American curriculum primitive. He amazed teachers with many things, even printed out homework on a printer (it should be noted that in those days, even in the USA, family computers were rare, and Mikhail Brin gave his son a real Commodore 64 computer for his nine years). Only the grandmother, who with incredible efforts received the long-awaited car license in order to take her grandson to school, sincerely grieved: “What will happen to him, because Serezhenka has only computers in her head?!”

After school, Sergei received a bachelor’s degree “from his father” ahead of schedule at the University of Maryland and for further studies went to the center of the country’s best scientific minds, the famous Silicon Valley (whose name is not entirely correctly translated as Silicon) in California, filled to the brim with leading technical educational institutions institutions and high-tech companies.

It was here, at a very prestigious computer university - Stanford University - that a significant meeting of two talented young men took place, which became the beginning of the creation Google.

Lawrence Edward Page (American roots)

Lawrence Edward Page born March 26, 1973 in Lansing, Michigan, USA. His parents belonged to the American technical intelligentsia: his mother Gloria was a programming teacher at the University of Michigan, his father Carl Vincent was a professor of computer science (ibid.). Having similar genetic roots, Larry simply could not help but fall in love with computers. He, like his future partner, was also the only student at his school who submitted homework electronically! But in those days, the era of punched cards still reigned in computing technology...

Later, at the University of Michigan College of Technology, Page fully demonstrated his leadership inclinations and was even elected president of the honorary society of American students in the field of electronic technology. It was here that he gained invaluable business skills and acquired the qualities of a real manager. His technical abilities also continued to develop, for example, from parts of a Lego constructor, a talented student assembled... a model of an inkjet printer! Having received his bachelor's degree, Larry immediately headed to the famous Stanford University.

Two units as one

Meanwhile Sergey Brin, led by the “sweet-voiced bird of youth,” did not at all overexert himself with scientific studies during his doctoral studies. The list of his chosen disciplines included dancing, gymnastics, and swimming. And when the father, trying to force his frivolous son to “come to his senses,” urged him to enroll in more advanced courses, he received the answer: “I’ve already signed up. To advanced swimming! However, the caring father worried in vain - Sergei was already captured by a new hobby, which gradually became the passion of his whole life. His name was " search engines».

In those days, information retrieval systems were very imperfect. The simplest request received whole mountains of links arranged in a chaotic order. This could not satisfy users, especially such demanding ones as Brin. However, he created one similar program himself, for himself personally - it combed the Playboy website and automatically downloaded new photos of beauties to the computer of an enterprising young man.

It is to this period that the significant acquaintance of two peers dates back to. Although the very first meeting was clearly not a success: the lively, proud, ambitious and unyielding young bachelors argued until they were hoarse, got cocky, and shouted at each other. But very soon they hit on an all-consuming topic of common interest - search engines! These two magic words instantly turned yesterday's rivals into partners and friends. “We were interested in the search - the information that truly affects people’s lives,” both later recalled.

Collaboration began to boil. And already in 1996, the forerunner was created and launched within the university Google, called BackRub by the creators. The name can be translated as “you give me - I give you” (later it was renamed to PageRank). The essence of the innovation was that the links received as a result of the request were not submitted in any form, as in other systems, but in accordance with the number of links to them from other computer pages. That is, the customer received a list starting with the most popular (and most relevant to his desires) documents.

The revolutionary invention was quickly appreciated by colleagues. But the Stanford professors rebelled: the amount of traffic used by students reached alarming limits. But the inventors could no longer be stopped, and they began looking for investors in order to open their own business.

one + one=google

Venerable and experienced businessman Andy Bechtolsheim, one of the founders of the Sun Microsystems corporation, imposingly puffing on a cigar, listened to the explanations of two disheveled young people about the advantages of the search engine they created for no more than a couple of minutes. “Sorry, but I'm in a hurry. What do you say your company is called?” - and he reached into his pocket for his checkbook. The tandem's amazement knew no bounds, because before that all potential sponsors did not want to hear about their creation. Having received a check for 100 thousand dollars a moment later, they were delighted and did not even immediately notice that it was written out to Google Inc., and not at all Google- a one followed by one hundred zeros, as they wanted to call their brainchild, implying an infinitely huge search base. Well, let it be Google, the main thing is that the first step has been taken! Having collected the rest of the required amount from relatives and friends, on September 7, 1998, they registered a new enterprise with a capital of one million dollars.

At first, the co-owners huddled in a garage that belonged to their friend Susan Wojcicki, and the company staff consisted of only 4 people. However, fame Google expanded at an extraordinary speed (all the proceeds went exclusively to business development, and not a penny for advertising). Within a year and a half, the enterprise turned into a profitable company. Due to the efficiency and enthusiasm of the creators, as well as unconventional methods of management and business, Google beat one competitor after another. The best evidence of triumph Google Inc. is that at the end of last year the newspaper's list of the world's top 100 largest brands Financial Times it took 1st place (total value - 66.43 billion dollars), ahead, by the way, in this indicator of competitors from Microsoft, as well as such monsters as General Electric, Coca-Cola And Marlboro.

The company’s tremendous successes have not at all spoiled the “technical intelligentsia” Larry and Sergei, despite the fact that their personal fortunes today amount to approximately $18 billion each. By the way, from the moment of transformation Google Inc. In the public company, both co-founders, as well as CEO Eric Schmidt, receive an annual salary of one dollar. Brin lives in a three-room apartment, drives a Toyota with an environmentally friendly engine, does gymnastics, rollerblades and enjoys roller hockey. Wears jeans, sneakers and sports jackets. Paige, on the other hand, is a huge roller hockey fanatic and lives just as modestly as her partner. Apart from his not very large three-room apartment, he has a great sense of humor, and it was he who created the famous company slogans: “You can be serious without a suit” and “Work should be a challenge, and challenges should be fun.”

By the way, about work. The office in the garage has long been forgotten, and the main office of the corporation is located, naturally, in the very heart of modern science, in Silicon Valley. And here everything is provided in order to make the work of staff easier, lift people’s spirits and thus increase their ability to work. Employees can enjoy sports competitions (primarily the extremely popular Google roller hockey), massage, piano music, free coffee and soft drinks. You can easily run into a dog or cat in the corridors of the building, because everyone is allowed to bring their pets to work. But what is most unusual: everyone is free to use 20% of their working time at their own discretion. If you want, count flies, but if you want, develop your own project. Amazingly, it is precisely these hours that account for the lion’s share of entered Google Inc. innovation!

Few find pairs

Until recently, offensively little was known about the personal life of our tandem. In general, morals in scientific circles are much more restrained than in secular society. And there’s no time for serious people to have affairs, they need to get busy! But suddenly last year unexpected news became known, and then a second, equally sensational one. Each found a life partner: first Sergei, and very soon Larry. Let down our secretive guys... our own favorite brainchild! No matter how hard they tried to keep changes in their personal lives secret, as soon as anyone curious dialed Google « Sergey Brin is getting married"and then the same regarding Larry Page, and all the information is before your eyes!

Computer geniuses found their life partners from their own environment. At the beginning of May 2007, a wedding took place in the Bahamas Sergei Brin With Anne Wojcicki, bioengineer. And they were introduced to Susan, who once rented out a garage for an office. Google Inc. Page did not lag behind his companion for long: in early December of the same year, still in the same Caribbean, he rented an entire island from his friend billionaire Richard Branson to perform a marriage ceremony with Lucy Southworth, a student at her native Stanford University. Looking at these two celebrations, one can once again be amazed at the closeness of destinies, the similarity of characters, preferences and life attitudes of both companions.

Google in numbers

Founders Google occupy 26th place in the list of the richest people on the planet. Each person’s personal fortune is $17.9 billion. The company employs more than 5,000 people.

The company allocates 1 percent of total profits to charity: the total over 10 years reaches half a billion dollars. Based on the results of the third quarter of 2007 Google showed an increase in revenue by 57% and net profit by 46% ($4.23 billion and $1.07 billion, respectively).

In 1995, Larry Page was going to enroll in a master's program at Stanford University. The student who was supposed to show Larry the university was Sergei Brin.

According to some reports, on the day they met they disagreed on almost all issues, but a year later they began working on a joint project - the Backrub search engine. It was based on the idea that the importance of an individual web page increases the more other pages link to it.

Soon the Backrub system was renamed Google. This name is a reference to the number "googol" - a one followed by a hundred zeros. It symbolizes the desire of the creators to organize all information on the Internet and provide convenient access to it.

In just a couple of years, Google's system attracted the attention of not only the scientific community, but also investors in Silicon Valley. In August 1998, Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote Larry and Sergey a check for $100,000. Google Inc. was founded with this money. Young entrepreneurs no longer needed to live in a dorm, and they set up their first office - a garage on the outskirts of Menlo Park, California. The garage belonged to Susan Wojcicki, who is now the CEO of YouTube. The interior of the new office consisted of bulky computers, a ping-pong table and bright blue carpet. The tradition of colorful design of Google offices continues.

Google has always been different from others. The first server was made from Lego parts, and first doodle(1998) informed website visitors that all Google employees were taking the day off to attend the Burning Man festival. With all our extraordinary approach to work, we strictly follow our motto “Don’t be evil” and Google's ten principles. At the turn of the millennium, the company expanded rapidly. Many developers were hired, a team of sales specialists was formed, and even the first corporate pet appeared - a dog named Yoshka. The garage became crowded, so the company moved to a new office in Mountain View. Today it houses Google's headquarters, also known as the Googleplex. We took a non-standard approach to work with us to our new location. And Yoshka.

Today, like 20 years ago, we are looking for better solutions. We have more than 60,000 employees in 50 countries. Our products, including YouTube, Android, Smartbox and Google Search are used by billions of people around the world. Of course, we stopped making servers out of Lego bricks and got a few more dogs, but rest assured, our desire to change the world for the better remains the same.

The history of the creation of Google is very instructive and interesting. Two American graduate students form a small company, which in 6 years turns into a reputable company with a public offering of shares on the stock exchange.

Today, the IT industry giant Google Inc. is an integral and main part of the huge corporation Alphabet Inc. Its founders were the same Stanford graduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin

The conglomerate's market capitalization exceeds $650 billion, which is the second highest in the global economy. The holding employs over 72 thousand employees.

Market capitalization is the value of an asset, which is calculated based on current stock prices.

Google Inc. called the most successful Internet company in the world. The current corporation has amazing statistics. According to the Statista portal, 90.4% of requests from personal computers come from Google. Its share in the search services market is about 60% of the global volume, and in the mobile search market – 93.8%.

Google receives over 40 billion queries every month. Since its inception, the system has indexed more than 60 trillion pages. Google has developed and supports a number of world-famous services and products, such as Search, Maps, Ads, Gmail, Android, Chrome and YouTube. The search engine has become so firmly established among users all over the world that even a special term has appeared: “Google.”

Where it all started

The history of the creation of the giant began in 1996, when Sergey Brin and Larry Page, graduate students at the prestigious Stanford University, enthusiastically worked on an Internet search project, later called “BackRub”.


Stanford University

In the process of research, they managed to develop a way to rank web pages by the number of backlinks - the PageRank algorithm. To put it briefly, it allowed all pages found by request to be arranged by the number of links to them. As a result, the most popular ones ended up at the top of the list.

The new search engine quickly gained popularity. Within two years, more than 10 thousand users accessed it daily. The service began to take almost half of the university’s entire Internet traffic, which caused dissatisfaction among the management and teaching staff. The threat of closure loomed over it.

How Google came to be

To continue the work of their brainchild, friends began searching for investors. They were helped by businessman Andy Bechtolschmain, who handed his friends a check for $100 thousand, but made out to the corporation. I had to urgently establish a company. Thus, in September 1998, the history of Google Inc., registered in the town of Menlo Park, California, officially began.

At first it employed 4 people, but the simple interface and speed of the search engine quickly began to make the company widely known. By the end of this year, the number of indexed pages was already about 60 million. The number of users of the system has increased several times. Google ended the year in PC Magazine's top 100 sites, above its competitors at the time. Almost all American news publications have written about the company and its magical product.

How Google Evolved

In the spring of 1999, the young team moved to the city of Palo Alto, where by that time many innovative startups in Silicon Valley were located. The company now has a full-fledged office with 8 employees. The number of search queries on Google servers increases to half a million per day.


Google office

Successes at the first stage of the history of the creation and development of Google contributed to the emergence of the first partner. In the summer of 1999, Page and Brin began negotiations with two large venture partners. Discussion of the terms of the contract lasted more than a year. Young Brin and Page defended their rights to the main roles in their company. A compromise solution was the introduction of a person from partners to the position of financial director into Google management. This is how Eric Schmidt appeared in the history of Google, who later became one of its leaders. Google received $25 million from new partners.


Eric Emerson Schmidt

Financial investments were used to strengthen the company with first-class specialists, increase capacity and infrastructure.

Monetization

In 2000, the history of development continues. The company, contrary to the original position of its founders, began selling text advertising. Advertisements played a big role in the company's subsequent success story; they were and are to this day Google's main source of income.

Of great importance in the history of Google was the development of a network of partner sites, which, in exchange for royalties from clicks on commercial links, hosted its advertisements. Revenue from advertising on partner sites today accounts for approximately 50% of the company's sales.

Growing income allowed the company, which significantly increased its staff, to rent 4 buildings in Mountain View (California) in 2003, where its headquarters are located today. The company gradually and powerfully entered the emerging Internet market.


Google headquarters in Mountain View

Google is recognized as the brand of the year according to the British Interbrand, ahead of Coca-Cola and Apple in this ranking.

IPO

The auction was held on August 19, 2004. The initial share price was set at $85. In a matter of days it reached $136. Google managed to earn $1.67 billion, the issue is considered one of the 25 largest in American history.

The first offering in Google's history sold 20 million shares. Its founders become billionaires, and about a thousand employees of the corporation become millionaires.

Since the advent of Google Inc. shares. on the stock exchange their price is steadily growing, along with the financial performance of the corporation.

Business expansion

Google executives initially recognized that their advantage in powerful computing power and new search technology could quickly be lost if the company did not stay ahead of the competition. Along with the improvement of search technology, active development of services and applications for the search system and the acquisition of promising start-up innovative companies begin.

In the summer of 2001, an image search service appeared, which was preceded by a huge amount of work on indexing an array of images. Further releases include Google News, Google Alerts, Google Desktop Search, Gmail mail service, translator, built-in calculator, explanatory dictionary and much more.

In the fall of 2006, Google Inc. acquires the company JotSpot, which develops wiki technologies, and in November conducts the largest deal to purchase video hosting YouTube, which cost the company $1.65 billion.

Convenient and practical online services are being developed. The most popular among them are Google Maps, Docs, Earth and others.

The Chrome browser was released in September 2008. 5 years later it became the most used browser in the world.

In 2011, Google specialists developed the Chrome OS operating system.

A breakthrough in the mobile device market was the provision of the free Android platform, which has now become popular and in demand around the world. A browser version was specially created for it.

Google has achieved remarkable success in a short period of time. By the end of 2014, the corporation had its representative offices in 41 countries. Its market value was more than 400 billion dollars.

Following the developed tactics of diversifying their business, Page and Brin in 2015 created the Alphabet Inc. holding company, the main asset of which is Google.

Where did the name come from

A name was needed for the new search engine. His friends chose the number Googol for him, which in writing has one and one hundred zeros after it, which, in their opinion, symbolized the vast information sea on the World Wide Web.

The spelling of the word was slightly corrected for euphony. In the fall of 1997, the google.com domain was registered.

There is also a version that the name change happened by accident when their first investor mistakenly indicated the non-existent Google Incorporated on the check. The friends had to register their company under this name.

History of the logo

The first logo was created by Sergey Brin using a regular graphics program. In his opinion, the logo should have displayed a distorted word Googol, which would characterize the endless possibilities of the created search system. It existed in various variations from 1997 to May 30, 1999.


Logo evolution

When the company gained popularity, it was decided to update its branding. Ruth Kedar, a design teacher from Stanford, took up this task at Sergei’s request. It was necessary to create a logo that would attract attention and distinguish the new search engine from a number of competitors.

The version of the Google logo created by the designer was approved and began to be used on May 31, 1999. The logo turned out to be colorful, successfully combining clean geometric shapes with simple, childish letters from a school ABC book. It was he who soon became recognizable throughout the world.

The next 3 versions of the logo are based on the design of Ruth Kedar.

In 2011, the logo was patented by Google.

The current Google logo has been in use since September 1, 2015. It was changed due to the reorganization of the company. At the same time, the previous logo continues to be a trademark of the company.

Like the previous ones, the modern logo is made in beautiful bright colors. What's new is the rotated "e", signifying that Google will always be unusual. There are points for interactive and transitional moments.

During major events like the Olympic Games, Google uses doodles instead of a logo - drawings, animations on the theme of current events.

A look into the future

Today Google is a transnational corporation, part of the international conglomerate Alphabet Inc. since October 2015. The company invests billions of dollars in various projects in the field of IT and communications, but, as before, its main focus is improving search and advertising on the Internet.


Google office from the inside

Work will continue to increase the capabilities of the Google Assistant voice assistant. It will receive support for new languages, including Russian.

The main focus is now not on mobile technologies, but on developments related to artificial intelligence. Part of this work has already included the introduction of “smart” replies in Gmail.

Work on speech recognition and computer vision will continue. Google Assistant will include a service for recognizing various objects using the camera.

Android will have support for the Kotlin programming language, developed with the participation of JetBrains from Russia.

The “light” version of the system, Android Go, will be introduced. It will improve performance on inexpensive smartphones and reduce traffic consumption.

The translator's capabilities are expanding. It is currently available in 116 languages, with plans to expand this list.

Financial stability

Alphabet's financial indicators are now consistently showing dynamic growth. Thus, the company’s revenue in the third quarter of 2014 increased by 24%, net profit by 33%.

At the same time, the revenue of Google's subsidiary increased by 23.4% to $27.5 billion. All experts express positive forecasts for both Alphabet and Google. The company's shares are steadily rising in price, and experts value their growth potential very highly.

The company continues its history, guided by its declared mission: to improve the world information system, make it more accessible and useful for all people.

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