A Brief History of Google
Google is an American multinational corporation that specializes in online advertising technologies, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software and artificial intelligence (AI). Its headquarters are located in Mountain View, California. It is considered one of the Big Five tech companies, along with Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft. Google is also known for its physical products, such as the Pixel smartphone line, Chromecast in-home streaming device and the Chromebook laptop range.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page met in 1995 at Stanford University when Page was considering going to grad school at the institution and Brin, a Ph.D student there, was assigned to show him around. The two got along well and soon they had begun working on a project that would eventually become the world’s most used search engine. They called it BackRub at first, but then decided to rename it Google after the word googol, which is a number one followed by 100 zeroes, to reflect its enormous scale.
The company grew rapidly, and it soon had hundreds of employees and was making huge sums of money. It began purchasing other websites and establishing its own social network and email service in addition to its flagship product, which was already the most popular way to search the internet. In 2004, the company had an initial public offering (IPO) to sell shares to the general public, which made it even more profitable.
By the end of the 2000s, Google was one of the most powerful forces in the world. The popularity of its services and its massive amount of accumulated data have made it one of the most valuable brands in the world. The company has been criticised for its alleged mishandling of user data, concerns that it may violate people’s privacy and the energy consumption and environmental impact of its servers.
In the early 2010s, Google expanded beyond search to areas such as mobile phone operating systems, digital mapping and even self-driving cars. Its Google Earth and Google Maps tools have revolutionised how we see the world and its landmarks. In addition, its augmented reality Glass headset allows users to interact with their environment in new and interesting ways.
In the late 2010s, the company began to focus on its hardware division. The Pixel smartphones and Chromebook laptops have won widespread acclaim, and the company’s smart home device, the Nest, has proved a hit with consumers. Other products include the Google Assistant virtual assistant and its YouTube video streaming service. A wide range of apps, games and other services are available for most devices running Google’s Android software. The company also offers a service for business that lets them host applications on its scalable Google App Engine platform. The company also maintains a blog and provides a variety of other tools, such as Google Takeout, a tool for moving data from various apps and services into its system. Google also maintains a repository of over 7 million patents.
