A couple of close friends who co-founded Google: Startup from Stanford dormitory, helping each other run the empire trillion dollars for 20 years, becoming a billionaire together and then ‘retirement’

The “fate” meeting …

The story of Google began in 1995 at Stanford University (USA) when Larry Page was considering studying there, while Sergey Brin, a student at the school, was assigned to take Page on a tour of the school. During that first meeting, the two disagreed about almost everything, but thanks to a certain fate, a year later the two “shook hands” with each other.

It was out of their dormitory rooms that Page and Brin came to life BackRub, a revolutionary search engine that ranks web pages based on the number of other websites linked to them during a call. is PageRank. The name BackRub didn’t last long when Page and Brin soon decided that the number “googol” – an integer starting with a 1 followed by 100 zeros – better reflected the amount of data they were working on. handling.

Based on that, they chose a more friendly name “Google” for their search engines and companies, which also speaks to the two founders’ mission to “organize the world’s information and make them possible. globally accessible and helpful “. Brin and Page registered the domain name google.com on September 15, 1997.

Google at this time attracted the attention of not only academia but also Silicon Valley investors. In August 1998, Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim “poured” Google the first capital of $ 100,000 and Google Inc. was officially established on September 4, 1998. However, Google later chose September 27 each year as its birthday, because this was the time when the company’s first birthday doodle was used in 2002. Since this year, it’s 4th birthday. Google, Google always celebrates special events with a Doodle.

The two Google co-founders also “upgraded” the workplace from the dorm to the first office, a garage in Menlo Park, California, then owned by Susan Wojcicki – the 16th employee of Google and is currently the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of YouTube.

Google at this stage recruited the first employee Craig Silverstein – who devoted more than 10 years to Google after that time. In 1999, Google once again moved its headquarters to 165 University Avenue, Palo Alto – considered Google’s first real office.

Google’s history is marked by many memorable milestones not long after moving to a new headquarters. Google raised $ 25 million in the first round of funding.

By 2020, after 22 years of establishment and development, Goolge’s brand value is already 207.5 billion USD. In addition to the search engine, a few other “legacies” of Google can be mentioned as the digital map service Google Maps (launched in 2005), the first smartphone running Android operating system (2008). Google Chrome browser (2008), Google Glass smart glasses (2012) …

The verb “google” meaning “to type the word into the Google search bar to find information about who / what” was added to the Oxford English dictionary in 2006. Google’s mission of data organization continues with electronic calendar products Google Calendar, Google Finance, Google Trends …

In 2015, Google announced an important plan when it created a new company called Alphabet. Alphabet was created to restructure Google by shifting Google’s subsidiaries to Alphabet, thereby narrowing the scope of Google’s operations.

Together “retire”

In 2019, more than 20 years after launching Google at the garage in Menlo Park, Larry Page and Sergey Brin decided to give up all leadership roles at parent Alphabet.

Accordingly, Page and Brin will resign from the position of CEO and president of the company, instead, Google CEO Sundar Pichai will take over the CEO position at Alphabet – taking over the same position as CEO of Google.

The two Google co-founders will remain on the company’s board of directors. They will still have voting power at the business, ensuring their influence over Alphabet without the need for titles.

“Alphabet and Google don’t need two CEOs and a chairman,” the letter from Page and Brin said.

Join the “100 billion USD club”

Since the announcement of leaving the leadership position of Google, both co-founders have been quite quiet. However, yesterday, information about both emerged again when Bloomberg confirmed that the assets each holding has exceeded $ 100 billion.

This came in the context of a sharp increase in the price of shares of technology firms. Thus, the group of billionaires with more than $ 100 billion is now comprised of 8 people, holding a fortune of more than $ 1 trillion.

Owning huge fortune, both Brin and Page invested a lot in real estate. In 2005, Page bought a house for $ 7.2 million. Spanning more than 830 square meters, this two-story house was built of stucco and tile in the Spanish colonial style. In 2009, Page began buying homes around the area to build an eco-friendly residence. The house has an area of ​​more than 550 square meters with a roof garden and is equipped with solar panels.

Meanwhile, Brin owns a home in West Village, New York with neighbors such as Sarah Jessica Parker and Tiger Woods. In 2008, he bought a penthouse of more than 320 square meters here for $ 8.5 million. Brin also lives at a residence in Los Altos Hills, California. A few years ago, Brin was supposed to have an eye on a nearly 2,800 square meter mansion in Alpine, New Jersey, for $ 48.88 million.

These two businessmen bought a 2005 Boeing 767-200, quite different from the other CEOs’ preference for Gulfstream. This plane can accommodate 50 passengers, has a seating area, a large bedroom with bathroom and dining area. They also have an airport worth $ 82 million. Google built this airport near San Jose in 2014.