The Google story begins in 1995 at Stanford University. Larry Page was considering Stanford for grad school and Sergey Brin, a student there, was assigned to show him around.
By some accounts, they disagreed about nearly everything during that first meeting, but by the following year they struck a partnership. Working from their dorm rooms, they built a search engine that used links to determine the importance of individual pages on the World Wide Web. They called this search engine Backrub.
Soon after, Backrub was renamed Google (phew). The name was a play on the mathematical expression for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros and aptly reflected Larry and Sergey"s mission “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
Over the next few years, Google caught the attention of not only the academic community, but Silicon Valley investors as well. In August 1998, Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote Larry and Sergey a check for $100,000, and Google Inc. was officially born. With this investment, the newly incorporated team made the upgrade from the dorms to their first office: a garage in suburban Menlo Park, California, owned by Susan Wojcicki (employee #16 and now CEO of YouTube). Clunky desktop computers, a ping pong table, and bright blue carpet set the scene for those early days and late nights. (The tradition of keeping things continues to this day.)
Even in the beginning, things were unconventional: from Google’s initial server (made of Lego) to the first “Doodle” in 1998: a stick figure in the logo announcing to site visitors that the entire staff was playing hooky at the Burning Man Festival. “Don't be evil” and “ The ten things we know to be true” captured the spirit of our intentionally unconventional methods. In the years that followed, the company expanded rapidly - hiring engineers, building a sales team, and introducing the first company dog, Yoshka . Google outgrew the garage and eventually moved to its current headquarters (a.k.a. “The Googleplex”) in Mountain View, California. The spirit of doing things differently made the move. So did Yoshka.
The relentless search for better answers continues to be at the core of everything we do. Today, with more than 60,000 employees in 50 different countries, Google makes hundreds of products used by billions of people across the globe, from YouTube and Android to smart box and, of course, Google Search. Although we’ve ditched the Lego servers and added just a few more company dogs, our passion for building technology for everyone has stayed with us - from the dorm room, to the garage, and to this very day.
| Google LLC. | |
|---|---|
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| 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 |
| Site | google.com (English) |
| Google at Wikimedia Commons | |
Google operates over a million servers in data centers around the world and processes over one billion search queries and 24 petabytes of user data every day. Google's rapid growth since its inception has led to a large number of products not directly related to the company's main product, the search engine. Google has online products such as the Gmail mail service, the Google+ social network. The company also has desktop products such as the Google Chrome browser, Picasa photo software, and Hangouts instant messaging software. 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 100 most visited sites, as are several other Google services sites are YouTube, Blogger, and Orkut. In May 2011, the number of monthly unique visitors to Google sites for the first time exceeded 1 billion people.
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 named the best reputable company in the US, ahead of Microsoft, Sony and others. Google services' dominance in the marketplace has led to criticism of the company over privacy, copyright, and censorship issues.
On April 23, 2018, 118 out of 1002 known IP addresses used by Google services were blocked in Russia. The google.com, google.ru domains, YouTube services, reCAPTCHA and AdSense became inaccessible to users in different parts of Russia.
History
Management
In July 2001, at the invitation of the founders of the company, the positions of chairman of the board of directors and chief executive officer of Google were taken by Eric Schmidt.
On April 4, 2011, Larry Page became CEO. 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 Class B shares, which together provide their holders with 68% of the vote. The triumvirate has a decisive influence in resolving all issues related to the competence of shareholders.
In 2015, as a result of Google's reorganization 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 list of the top 100 employers in the United States for the fourth time.
Google had a 20 percent program whereby engineers can spend 20% of their time on projects that are not part of their job responsibilities, however, since 2011, the company has embarked on the path of becoming maximum efficiency, and abandoned this program.
Hiring
When hiring new employees, among other things, their ability to work in the existing corporate culture, in particular in a flat organizational structure and a rapidly changing environment, is assessed. A successful candidate must have talent, creativity and passion, be ethical, open and be able to impress even without a business suit.
Millions of resumes submitted online are first processed automatically, identifying those who could potentially fit the company.
In an effort to attract talent, the company hosts a Google Code Jam tournament among college students. In this tournament, programmers compete in solving problems against the clock. The 15 finalists are invited to Google Headquarters for a final round.
In January 2018, former technologist James Damore filed a lawsuit in court accusing Google of discriminating against employees on the basis of skin color and political views. James Damore himself was fired after alleging gender inequality.
Project "Oxygen"
Google conducted a massive study over the course of two years, dubbed Project Oxygen, to develop its own model of a good leader. As a result, in March 2011, the following essential qualities of a good leader were published by Google:
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 contribute to solving 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 submit ideas and then jointly choose one that will change the world and help as many people as possible. At the start of voting, over 150,000 ideas were submitted by 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 dollars.
Google and society
Violation of the right to privacy
For the first time, problems in connection with the violation of human rights at Google began in 2005. Images of the roof of the American White House were used in the creation of Google Earth maps, which poses a threat to the national security of the United States. The American public was deeply outraged that would-be terrorists were given a chance to take a closer look at the White House's rooftop security 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 Borings accused Google of violating their privacy. Images of the couple's home and swimming pool were used to create Google Street View's global urban virtual maps. The Borings immediately sued and demanded $25,000 from Google in compensation for moral damages. However, their first claim was not satisfied. However, the litigation continued, and by court order in 2010, the Borings received $1 compensation from the company. However, Google representatives said: "Unfortunately, absolute privacy does not exist in the modern world, because there are images from satellites that film everything, ignoring the signs "private area"". However, the company's specialists can remove images from their server if they are asked to do so in private.
Google was also opposed by the American National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC). As evidence of a violation of private rights by the service, the members of the center provided information about one of the leaders of Google, collected using the company's services in less than half an hour - images of his house, numbers of cars parked near him, the name of a company engaged in landscaping his territory, and even the name of a security company , whose customers are its neighbors .
Due to the large number of claims against the company, Eric Schmidt stated in 2009: "If you do not want anyone to find out unnecessary information about you, then first of all, do nothing reprehensible. […] In fact, search engines, including Google, retain this information for some time.We are all subject to the authorities of the United States, so there may be a situation in which we will have to disclose information to authorities.
In 2010, a new scandal related to Google received a great public outcry. 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 Wi-Fi wireless networks. As a result, the company received passwords and other confidential information necessary to enter the e-mail 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 before the German authorities approached them with claims in this regard. Google specialists assured that the received information of a private nature was not used in the search engine.
In the summer of 2013, thanks to former US intelligence officer Edward Snowden, it became known that the US government was paying millions of dollars to Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook for disclosing information about Internet users (as part of the PRISM program). The expenses, 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 legal officer David Drummond posted an open letter on the company's blog to the U.S. Attorney General and Director of the FBI, asking for permission to release details of government requests, including those based on the Oversight Act, in a regular transparency report. over the activities of foreign intelligence services (FISA). According to Drummond, the responses to these requests did not provide the US government with direct access to user data.
Currently, Google is being seriously criticized for human rights violations related to the implementation of the Google Glass project. Wearing Google glasses is already banned in US movie theaters, casinos and strip clubs. Their owners are afraid that visitors wearing such glasses will record what is happening on video. In addition, the decision to ban glasses may soon be taken by American banks and park directorates. Representatives of Google have not yet commented on this situation.
On August 5, 2014, Google reported to US law enforcement agencies that one of the users of Gmail, a subsidiary mail service, had photos of children with pornographic content, after which the user was arrested.
Participation in the affairs of foreign states
Some Google experts took part in the events of the Arab Spring, advocating for democratic values and the protection of human rights. Thus, Wail Ghonim, director of marketing for Google in the Middle East and North Africa, 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 the violence against the citizens of Egypt by the ruling authorities was condemned and the actions of the demonstrators were coordinated. 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 information and products of the company in the Middle East and North Africa. In this regard, the goal of the American company is to provide access to even more of its products in Arabic. In 2011, the company launched the Arabic version of Google Voice and Google+ and presented two museums located in Qatar (Museum of Islamic Art and the Mathaf Arab Museum of Contemporary Art) in +Art Project, and in 2012 invited the President of Tunisia to speak through the Google+ video broadcast service Hangout On Air. Google also has serious claims 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 has appeared in the English language to google or to Google(an 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 listed in the most authoritative dictionaries of the English language -
The mobile version of Google Docs received a text editing function.
Company Google Inc. founded in 1998 (date of registration - September 4, 1998) by Sergey Brin (Sergey Brin) and Larry Page (Larry Page). Brin and Page met at Stanford University and began working together on a project that would become Google. According to the company's founders, "Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it accessible and useful to all."
Today the company has more than ten thousand employees worldwide. Brin is President of Technology, Page is President of Products.
Eric Schmidt, chairman and chief executive officer, joined Google from Novell in 2001. Under his leadership, Google has significantly expanded its infrastructure and product range. His wealth of experience has been well prepared to lead the development of user-centric technology solutions. Together with the company's founders and other members of the leadership team, Schmidt is responsible for the company's technical and business strategies.
Google headquarters is located at 1600 Amphitheater Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043.
One of the most important activities of the company is the issuance 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 YouTube and the online photo editor Picasa, which allows you to process photos and form web albums from them.
Google Mail Service with virtually unlimited storage space for messages, internal search and "smart" anti-spam system. It has a standard mode and a basic HTML version that switches to automatically when you sign in to Gmail with a browser that isn't fully supported.
Google Docs
Online application for joint remote work on documents. Google Docs allows you to add Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML or plain text documents, create documents from scratch, and upload your own online documents; modify documents on the Internet simultaneously with any users you choose and invite other people to view these documents; publish documents on the Internet; send documents via email as attachments.
Google Docs also provides for work with tables, presentations and illustrations.
Google Maps
A Google service that offers user-friendly map search technology and local business data, including address, contact information, and driving directions. You can work with maps in three display options: satellite photos, maps, and a hybrid of the first two maps. It supports searching for a point by latitude and longitude.
The service also includes the service "Google Traffic", "Google Places", mobile versions of maps, a designer of individual maps, etc. With the help of Google Street View, you can explore panoramic 3D images of various settlements of the world.
Google Earth
Google Earth is a client installed on the user's computer. With it, you can travel the world with a virtual globe and view satellite photos, maps, landscape, 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 a one followed by 100 zeros. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and first described in Kasner and James Newman's Mathematics and the Imagination.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from the official website
Every day, people from all over the world receive a colossal flow of information through the Internet. Most often, for such a service as information search, we resort to the help of Google, because it meets all the requirements of a modern person, namely, the activity is carried out quickly and efficiently. Every day the audience of "Google" replenishes. So what happens on the other side of the screen? How does it operate? Where is the headquarters of Google, where miracles happen? Now we will tell about it.
Who is the founder of Google?
The idea of creating "Google" appeared within the walls from the usual research work of L. Page and S. Brin.
At that time, all existing search engines searched for information by mentioning the entered terms on the sites. The authors of "Google" decided to improve this system, which independently analyzed the relationship between sites, which gave a better result. This technology is called PageRank. In it, an important role in finding the right information is played by the importance and number of pages linking to the site.
The very name of the company was suggested by science. A googol means a number that includes one and one hundred zeros. A little later in the advertising campaign, the name played its role, suggesting to the consumer that this search engine could provide people with a lot of information.
Therefore, the question of who is the founder of Google can be answered with the following answer: science and consumer requirements.
Activity of the company
First of all, Google is a search engine. The interface is very convenient to use, as it helps to narrow the amount of information found at the user's request as much as possible.
Services such as Gmail and GoogleMap have also come into widespread use. The presence of "Google"-mail is very convenient if your activity is connected with international relations, therefore, upon registration, you receive a *.com domain.
As for Google maps, they are very convenient to use from the point of view that they will literally show you the chosen place. This will help you quickly navigate the area.
Where is the headquarters of Google?
Google headquarters is not a secret place. She is located in California. The exact address of the main office is Mountain View, Amphitheater Parkway, CA 94043. The central office is a complex of buildings intended for the work of employees.
Also, when discussing the question of where the main office of Google is located, it is worth emphasizing that all buildings are located on the territory of Silicon Valley. And this is a territory for high-tech representatives of the industrial industry. The Google campus is called the Googleplex.
This year it became known about the construction of a new corporate headquarters in North Bayshore Mountain View. We will follow the development of this topic, because all Google offices have their own specific features.
Google office features
After considering the question of where the main office of "Google" is located, its characteristic features should be highlighted.
Google approached the issue of shaping the workspace in a very creative, unusual and stylish way.
It is important for the company that its employees give their best at their workplaces, so the management is ready to do everything for this. Employees have a huge number of privileges that no company can boast of, namely: massage services if necessary, the ability to travel to various parties, a wide selection of delicacies for every taste.
Each room is designed for a specific type of activity, ranging from a meeting room to a dining room. If an employee wants to take a nap, then there are special capsules for him that limit the sleeper from light and noise. Also on the territory there is a sandy playground for playing volleyball and a swimming pool.
Corporate culture
Google pays special attention to the culture in the company. This is so, must have full control over what is happening.
When choosing employees, in addition to the usual live selection, when a commission of Google representatives considers submitted applications, there is also computer control. This means that candidates' CVs are first reviewed by a computer and automatically identified who might be a potential fit for the company.
A new employee must be prepared for the fact that around him there will be a rapid change of people, a flat organizational structure. To succeed and get into the ranks of the Google employees, you need to have a passion for your own work, be creative, be open and ethical, and be able to impress others without a strict office suit.
In addition to monitoring ordinary employees, Google's offices also monitor executives. So, thanks to the conducted research, the structure and model of a good leader was revealed, his qualities were determined.
Subsidiaries of Google
Google itself is part of Google Inc., as well as the GoogleMap card database and 50 other projects that have facilitated the activities of a huge number of people around the world. In addition to the advertising service, web service, directories, software developers, Google Inc. also has a charitable fund Google Foundation. Also, "Google" has implemented its own development of a system of alternative DNS-addresses. If you look closely, you can understand that Google is all around us.
In order to expand the target audience every day, Google Inc. has subsidiaries Google. This list includes: On2 Technologies, Google Foundation, Zagat Survey, FeedBurner, DoubleClick, AdMob, Aardvark, Google Voice, Youtube. Based on this list, we can conclude that Google is trying to win people over the globe by offering various types of services on its platform.
Even 20 years ago, it was still difficult to imagine that computers would be so firmly entrenched in the daily life of every person.
Work, relax, communicate - all this can be done using a device with Internet access. And being on the World Wide Web and not knowing what Google is is the same as living in Paris and missing the Eiffel Tower.
Advanced search technologies and a huge number of useful services have made this company the true king of the Internet.
Who do you need to be to conquer the world? Someone will need an army of well-trained soldiers for this, and someone will need beauty. But in our time, more and more people are gaining recognition and respect with their mind.
In many biographies of famous personalities, there is a description of ordinary guys who started creating in their own garage. All they had initially were brains with bright ideas.
The history of Google began with these young people, ready to work hard to make their plans a reality:
The path from zero to billions
In the formation and development of Google, a deep domestic trace can be traced. The talented mathematician Sergey Brin, who emigrated to the United States at the age of five, was at the very beginning of the company and still manages it:
To understand the amazing transformation from “nothing” to a giant at the forefront of modern technology, it is necessary to note the most important stages in the development of Google.
- 1995 Sergey Brin volunteered to give a tour of Stanford University for students, one of whom was Larry Page. The student and the "guide" immediately began to argue about everything in the world, which became the basis for further strong friendship and the same cooperation;
- 1996 Development of a search engine based on PageRank technology, the essence of which is the ranking of sites depending on the link weight obtained with the help of backlinks. This technology has become a real revolution, since before that the main criterion for search engines was the number of keywords on the resource page;
- 1997 Google got its name. It is simply impossible to imagine how much information on the World Wide Web, so Sergey and Larry decided to choose as the name the number that is closest to " impossible to imagine how much". A googol is when you add one hundred zeros to one. The spelling of the word was slightly corrected for euphony;
- August 1998 The only question Andy Bechtolstein (co-founder of Sun) was: " In whose name should the check be written?? One hundred thousand dollars went to the account of the not yet born Google Inc;
- September 1998 The company moves to its first office - a garage. There are already 3 employees on the staff.
- February 1999 The company already has 8 people and rents an office in Palo Alto.
- September 1999 Move to own building located in Mountain View.
- year 2000. Google signs an agreement with Yahoo, becoming the main provider of information search services and the largest search engine in the world.
- year 2001. The company expanded its influence in South America. There are 3 billion documents in the search engine index.
- 2002 A new office opens in Sydney.
- 2003 Google buys Pyra Labs, whose most famous technology was Blogger.
- 2004 The main office moves to a new building, the number of employees has increased to 800 people. Google goes public for the first time, offering its shares on the NASDAQ. Larry Page and Sergey Brin become billionaires.
In the future, things at Google went better and better, and today it is already impossible to imagine using the Internet without the popular services that the company developed.
Services we can't live without
Throughout its existence, Google has not wasted any time. The company has developed a huge number of useful services, the most popular of which should at least be listed:
- Google+ is a social network launched in 2011. A distinctive feature is the system of circles Google Circles:
- Google Docs is a service that allows you to create text documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Data can be stored in the cloud storage;
- Google Drive is a virtual drive on which you can store up to 15 GB of your own information and access it from anywhere in the world:
- AdSense - contextual advertising that is automatically placed according to the subject of the page;
- Analytics is a tool for developers and SEO optimizers. Provides detailed statistics on the work of the web resource:
- Gmail - email;
- Maps - geographical maps with which you can easily calculate the route to your destination:
- News - news formed from the headlines of the world's most popular publications. The composition of the categories is displayed according to the user's preferences;
- Play - game application store;
- Picasa is a service that allows you to work with images.
Your personal browser
One of the company's outstanding achievements was the creation of the Google Chrome browser, which immediately proved to be competitive in a market where, it would seem, there could be no rivalry:
In September 2008, the company announced the release of its own web browser, which was a big surprise, because before that, Google in every possible way denied such a possibility, citing inappropriateness.
The beta version was released only for Windows, but by December, thanks to the hard work of the developers, the browser occupied one percent of the market, which is a colossal result in such a short time.
Until 2013, Chrome was based on WebKit technology, but subsequently switched to the innovative Blink engine.
In 2009, Chrome became the permanent browser of 9% of users, and a year later - already 15%. Today, about 40 percent of people with access to the Internet prefer Google Chrome.
