In case you haven't noticed, I'm using Google as my search engine to find sources for my Daily Doodles. I really enjoy the Google Doodles, and the search engine has been used by me probably a million times, if not more.
From humble beginnings, the Google has blossomed into a world leader in online advertising, cloud computing, software, and hardware solutions. Google's mission statement is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."
Google's history began in 1995 when Larry Page met Sergey Brin. At the time, Larry Page was a Ph.D. student at Standford University, and Sergey was considering studying there. In 1996, the pair began work on a search engine called BackRub.
The name comes from the algorithm-generated ranking for how many "back-links" a page has. This engine worked on the Stanford servers for more than a year before it eventually clogged up the bandwidth and was forced to move. Google.com was registered on September 15th, 1997.
The name Google is a play on "googol," which is a mathematical term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. It is rumored that this reflects the founders' mission to organize the infinite amount of information on the internet.
In August of 1998, Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote a check for $100,000 to the as yet non-existent company Google Inc. He did this after seeing a quick demo on the porch of a Stanford faculty member's home in Palo Alto.
Initially, there was no way to deposit this check, because it was made out to "Google Inc." At the time, there wasn't a legal entity with that name. The check sat in Page's desk drawer for two weeks while he and Brin rushed to set up a corporation and locate other investors.
Google was incorporated on September 4th, 1998 as a private company. The founders opened a bank account and could finally deposit Bechtolsheim's investment.
Google's first office was, classically, a friend's garage in Menlo Park, California. It came with a remote controller for the garage door.
Google also hired its first employee, Craig Silverstein, who stayed with the company for more than ten years before joining another startup - Khan Academy.
In 1999, Google moved from its humble garage to new digs at 165 University Avenue, Palo Alto. At this time they were eight employees strong. Their most important team member, Yoshka the dog, also joined the team at this time.
Google also hired its first chef, Charlie Ayers. His previous claim to fame was catering for the Grateful Dead. By the time he left Google in 2006, Ayers and his team of five chefs and 150 employees were serving 4,000 meals a day in 10 cafes across the company's headquarters campus.
As for the Google Doodles the company has, you might be interested to know that the very first one was the iconic "Burning Man" icon. This was put up in August 1998 to let users know where the team would be for the next few days, they've only gotten more interesting and complex as the years go on.
