Google

Google LLC is an American multinational technology company that dominates internet services, software, and consumer electronics. Its parent company, Alphabet Inc., consistently ranks among the world's most valuable corporations, with a market capitalization that has fluctuated between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion in recent years.

The company began in September 1998, founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two Stanford Ph.D. students. Their earlier research project, BackRub, analyzed web links to determine page importance through the PageRank algorithm. The name Google is a misspelling of googol, the number 1 followed by 100 zeros, reflecting their mission to organize vast amounts of information. Initial funding came from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, who wrote a $100,000 check in August 1998. The company operated from a garage in Menlo Park, California, owned by Susan Wojcicki, who later became employee #16 and CEO of YouTube. In 1999, Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins provided $25 million to accelerate growth. Google went public on August 19, 2004, at $85 per share, raising $1.67 billion and valuing the company at $23 billion.

Google has expanded far beyond search into an ecosystem of products used by billions. Key offerings include Gmail, YouTube, Android, Google Maps, Google Chrome, Google Cloud, and the Gemini AI model. The company also develops hardware such as Pixel smartphones, Pixel Watch, and Fitbit wearables, and invests in self-driving technology through Waymo. In 2015, Google reorganized under Alphabet Inc., with Sundar Pichai becoming CEO of Google in 2015 and later CEO of Alphabet in 2019. The company's headquarters, known as the Googleplex, is in Mountain View, California, with over 70 offices in more than 50 countries and approximately 190,000 employees. [edit]