A Monstrous Organization: 10 Facts About Google You Probably Didn’t Know About

Long before Google became the go-to verb for most people, the company was like an obedient dog in the digital world that would only locate and retrieve queries from the internet. It’s like users are playing a game of fetch over and over again. What started as a Stanford University project in 1995, eventually grew into a 350 million dollar company.

Aside from becoming a popular noun or verb, the colossal tech business is now chasing more advancements, such as rendering human drivers obsolete or developing the fastest internet speeds. Let’s take a closer look at all there is to know about the massive multi-million dollar tech company through these google facts.

A Play On The Word’ Googol’

Page and Brin declared their skyrocketing project domain name as Google, on September 15th, 1997, under the BackRub label. It was a play with “googol,” which was the numeral word backed up by 100 zeros. The name suggests that the brainy pair is coding their latest search engine to mine, making sense of the almost endless volume of info.

Originally Created For A Sole Purpose

When Google was originally developed, Brin and Page aimed at offering a structured archive of world knowledge that is universally available. This eventually turned out to be the search engine we know today from Backrub to Googol.

The First-Ever Employee

Aside from the man leasing the garage he owns in Menlo Park, California, Silverstein stayed with the company for over ten years as the first-ever office for Google. After some time, the man eventually joined another startup business called the Khan Academy. However, his success in that company is for a different story.

The First-Ever Office of The Company

Susan Wojcicki’s garage on Santa Margarita Avenue at Menlo Park, California, became the first office for the business in September 1998. Wojcicki, 23andMe founder’s sister Anne Wojcicki, is Google’s 16th employee. She was the first managing officer at Google and is currently the YouTube CEO.

As for the home where Google was initially developed, the owners of the business titan that we all know today bought it, because they can. This was then packed with chocolate, treats, and lava lamps in the suburban ranch home.

Google’s Owners Are In It For the Long Run

Until the business went public in 2004, Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO and now Alphabet Executive Chairman, told Fortune in 2008 that Schmidt’s team and co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin planned to partner up for twenty years. Announcing to the public that the company will be around for many years to come.

Google Mail Was Launched on April Fools

Google launched Gmail on April 1, 2004, in a wackily-written statement, which was commonly mistaken as a joke despite Silicon Valley’s long-standing practice of pulling April Fool’s Day prank. It wasn’t Google Gulp. It was an amazing dual fake and the forerunner to a Google staple that now serves more than a million users each day.

Google Translate Supports Over 100 Languages

Only two languages, English and Arabic, were supported when Google Translate initially launched ten years ago. Today, it is easy for Google to interpret French, Spanish, and German. Moreover, translations from Arabic, Indonesian, Portuguese, and Russian are the most requested languages in the platform.

Google Earth Becoming Helpful In Rescue Operations

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, for instance. Satellite overlays were given within the computer software to display the affected region. With it, t The rescuers could then help track the severity of the hurricane’s impact. During various emergency rescue attempts, Google Earth became an important asset.

What Originally Started As ‘Google Print’

The organization also partnered with several large libraries worldwide to provide their services for the Web. In 2005, this effort was dubbed as ‘Google Books.’ Eventually, roughly over a million books were downloaded annually. In 2012, Google scanned more than 15 million books already.

The Iconic First Stick Figure

In August 1998, Page and Brin produced the first message outside the office to remind citizens they were heading to the Burning Man Festival. The company’s soon-to-be billionaires positioned the iconic Burning Man behind the second ‘o’ in the logo of Google.

Takeaway

There you have it! Ten facts about Google that you probably didn’t know about. For the past decade, Google became a part of a person’s daily life, similar to the internet. We got to the point when we can’t imagine a life with the internet, especially Google.

From the company’s humble beginning in a dorm room to becoming the world’s go-to noun or verb and a multi-million dollar company, Google has indeed come a long way. Furthermore, Google’s services can be used anywhere at any given time; all users need to access its services are laptops, desktops, tablets, or smartphones.