Here in the U.S., Google is as common as air. The company has become synonymous with search and all things Internet. So much so that it's even now an official word. Go ahead, look up Google in any modern dictionary and you'll find: "Use an Internet search engine, particularly Google.com." Crazy, right? That's how heavily the company founded in a Stanford dorm room back in 1996 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin has seeped into the fabric of our everyday lives. It's become a part of us. Whether the search engine or one of its subsidiaries like YouTube, Android, or Gmail, there's a good chance you use at least one Google service each day before you eat lunch. But how much do you really know about Google? Besides the fact that it rakes in nearly $40 billion a year and is one of the most valuable companies in the world? Oh, and that it's supposedly one of the most fun places in the world to work? If that's all you know, keep reading.
When Sun Microsystems co-founder, Andy Bechtolsheim, invested in Google with a $100,000 check made out to Google In
Google's first server rack was built from LEGO's, as the team considered it a more cost-efficient (and expandable)
Google originated as a PhD project to provide context and organization to the all the links and pages on the world wide web. The first web address was "google.stanford.com."
The first-ever Google Doodle, a design made in honor of the 1998 Burning Man Festival, was originally used as an "out of office" message for co-founders Page and Sergey to inform employees they would be unavailable while in attendance at the event in Nevada.
Google had to add the copyright line at the bottom of the webpage after discovering users weren't sure if the page was finished loading.
Former CEO, Eric Schmidt, once asked to have all his personal information removed from Google's index, but his request was denied as it violated the company's policy.
Because it makes all of its own servers, Google is one of the top 5 computer manufactuers in the world, right up there with HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Apple.
Google's first data center was opened in The Dalles, OR. in 2006 for $600 million. To not alert other companies of its expansion plans, Google joined the town's Chamber of Commerce to keep it all a secret. It now owns and operates 13 in seven countries.
Google's first on-campus chef was a man by the name of Charlie Ayers who also cooked for the Grateful Dead
Before Google purchased YouTube, the co-founders, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim placed ads on Craigslist offering "hot" women $100 for every 10 videos they posted to the site.
Google's first employee was Craig Silverman
Built as a way to save money on leasing space on other fiber optic systems, Google Fiber is now the fastest ISP in the U.S. with speeds of 1 GB per second. Unfortunately, it's only available in Kansas City, Missouri.
Before Andy Rubin sold Android to Google, WebTV founder Steve Perlman gave him an envelope with $10,000 to keep the company afloat.
When Google first opened operations in China, it blocked access to its main source code from Chinese employees out of fear that it the government would gain access to it.
Before the free five-star meals, Google's first complimentary company snack was Swedish Fish.
Google has extraordinary on-campus day centers for employees' chidlren. It's so good, that in 2008 the company calculated that it spent $37,000 a year on each child. That's $3,000 more a semester than Stanford's computer science PhD program.
Bikes are placed around the Google campus, unlocked, for employees to use when getting from building to building. To make life a little easier, doctors are brought onto the campus so employees don't have to leave for check-ups.
You've heard about Google employees getting to eat gourmet meals three times a day for free, but did you know that most new employees gain what's referred to the "Google 15"? Yup, just like college freshman.
Google's first crack at a social network, Orkut, was the brainchild of a Google engineer named Orkut Büyükkökten an
In order to maintain its quirky company culture, Google has a "Chief Culture Officer," whose job it is to make sure employees are happy and the corporate structure stays true to Page and Brin's original vision.
Google's homepage wasn't the result of focus group testing or expensive web designers-it was simple and plain because, as the company didn't have a webmaster and Sergey Brin didn't "do HTML."
Because Larry Page created the famed PageRank algorithm while at Stanford, the university holds the patent. In exchange for long-term rights to the patent, Google gave the school 1.8 million shares of stock, which resulted in $336 million.
The "Did you mean..." suggestion feature doubled Google's traffic when it was introduced.
When Page and Brin needed an office for Google, Susan Wojcicki rented her garage to the two Stanford students for $1,700 a month. On top of helping her with the mortgage, Wojcicki became a top Google executive, and introduced her sister to Sergey who wound up marrying her.
To be a bit more green, Google has installed 1.6MW solar panels on the rooftops of every building on its main campus in Mountview, Calif. The 9,212 panels generate 4,475kWh each day, or the same amount of electricity used by 1,000 homes.
Because the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button takes users directly to the web page of the first search result, bypassing all of Google's ads, the feature costs Google around $110 million a year.
Google's intranet search engine goes by the name of "Moma," which also shares the same name as a café in its Mountain View campus.
There is no standard dress code for employees or interviewees.
Page's dorm room served as Google's first-ever data center in 1998.
Brin and Page would hang around the Stanford campus loading dock hoping to "snag computers as they came in," according to Page.
The company's search algorithm referred to as PageRank, which provides rankings for every page indexed on the Web, was officially named after co-founder Larry Page.
Google received a record 75,000 applications for 6,000 job openings in just one week back during February 2011.
The first version of Google didn't have a "search button," forcing users to rely on the "enter" or "return" key on their PC to generate searches.
Google's first tweet was a cryptic message written in binary code that translates to "I'm Feeling Lucky" when decoded.
There's an internal meme generator for Google employees to crack jokes on each other.
Instead of lawnmowers, Google rents goats from a company called California Grazing to eat and fertilize the grass of its headquarters, plus help reduce fire hazards.
Page and Brin almost sold Google for $1 million to Yahoo, but the company passed, along with AltaVista, Excite, and
When told they needed to hire a "real CEO," Brin and Page's first and only pick for a head honcho was Steve Jobs. U
Before the Recession hit, Google offered workers a $5,000 hybrid car subsidiary as part of its employees incentives
Google processes over 20 petabyets (1 petabyte = 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes) a day of user-generated data.
One click of the mouse allows the search engine to crunch up to 1 trillion pieces of information.
Over 1 trillion pages have been indexed so far on Google.
Google shares the largest network of languages interfaces: 72 to be exact including fictional ones such as Klingon, Pig Latin, Pirate, and even Elmer Fudd.
The name Google was created by mistake after the co-founders made a spelling error over the original name: googol.
The search engine was originally named BackRub, but Page and Brin decided to change the moniker to the word googol,
Former executive Marissa Mayer tried to kill the billion-dollar business known as Google Adsense, as she found the
Over $72 million a year is spent on feeding company employees.
Before felines became an Internet sensation, the world's largest search engine demonstrated its loyalty to man's best friend-introducing a Leonberger-bred dog named Yoska as the company dog, which belong to VP of Engineering Urs Hölzle.
According a Worldstream study from 2011, Lowe's spends the most on Google AdWords advertising. That year it dropped a whopping $59.1 million.
