Happy Birthday, Google!

It is difficult to imagine a modern world without Google . During 2012, according to the company itself, the search through Google was carried out almost 115 billion times. The Google - Gmail mail service is used by 425 million people around the world, and the Google Chrome browser - 310 million.

Google has turned into one of the most recognizable brands in the world, and the word “Google” itself was officially recognized in the Oxford dictionary of the English language , indicating the process of searching for information on the Internet. The dictionary even recognized the adjective “Googleable”, that is, amenable to such a search.

It is curious that the name Google appeared as a result of a spelling error. The founders of Larry Page and Sergey Brin initially called it Googol - this is the name of the number depicted by a unit with 100 zeros. However, one of the first investors of the company - Andy Bekhtolchei, one of the founders of the Sun Microsystems Corporation - wrote out a check for one hundred thousand dollars in the name of Google, Inc. To avoid difficulties in receiving money at the bank, young entrepreneurs decided to keep this name.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at the University of Stanford in California in 1995, when both were a little more than twenty. Page is from the state of Michigan, and Brin was born in Moscow, from where his parents emigrated to the USA when Sergey was only six years old.

In 1996, Page and Brin developed a search mechanism called Backrub . For more than a year, the system worked on Stanford servers, and as a result, its traffic exceeded the throughput of the university Internet channel. Young people soon came to the conclusion that their project could have a commercial success, and decided to create their own company.

Her first office was located in the garage of the common acquaintance of Page and Brin Susan Voitsitski, sisters of the future wife of Sergei Brin - Anna. Soon, the young company became famous in Silicon Valley, precisely thanks to its innovative technologies for the ranking of searching on the Internet. And in 1999, she attracted the attention of the first investors, among which were the venture companies of SEQUOIA Capital and Kleiner Perkins .

In the same year, the ranks of employees were replenished with the first specialist without technical education. They became a sales specialist Omid Cordestani .

In the next two years, the company becomes known outside the United States. In 2000, google.com versions in French, German, Italian, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Norwegian and Danish were released. In the same year, there was the opportunity to search in Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

A little later, in 2000, the flagship advertising project and the main source of Google revenue - the Adwords service were launched. In 2003, the Adsense advertising service is added to it.

By that time, Google had already become the largest search engine on the Internet. In 2004, the company's search index reaches a fantastic line: 6 billion elements, including 4.8 billion web pages and 800 million pictures and photos. The company's staff expanded to 800 employees, and she moves to her current office in the city of Mounten-Vew, not far from the first.

On August 19, 2004, an event takes place, which will subsequently not only bring Brin and Page to the circle of the richest people in the world, but will also bring fabulous profit to the investors of the company. On Wall Street, the initial placement of Google shares is carried out. Starting price - $ 85 per share. In nine years, she grew ten times. On September 26, 2013, Google was worth $ 878.

Today, Google is a giant transnational corporation, whose staff is almost fifty -five thousand people. According to 2012, the company's turnover exceeded $ 50 billion, and net profit approached 11 billion.

The company earns money not only on advertising. By acquiring, for example, part of a business company as Motorola , Google now produces its own smartphones, tablet computers and laptops, directly competing with Apple , Microsoft or Samsung .

On the eve of its 15th anniversary, the company announced the introduction of a new search algorithm Hummingbird , designed to speed up the process of searching for information on the Internet.

Over the past fifteen years, the Google Corporation has changed our very idea of the Internet and its capabilities, and some Google innovations - such as, for example, as much cards or photographs available to every point of the globe - have also changed how we know the world around us.