NET WORTH : $106.9Billion
Google LLC is a global technology business based in the United States that specializes in computer software, cloud computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, internet advertising, quantum computing, and consumer electronics. Because of its market domination, data gathering capabilities, and technological advantages in the field of artificial intelligence, it has been called to as "The most powerful company in the world" and one of the most valuable brands in the world. Among the Big Tech firms are Google's parent company Alphabet Inc., Amazon, Apple Inc., Meta, and Microsoft.
While pursuing their doctorates at Stanford University in California, American computer scientists Larry Page and Sergey Brin started Google on September 4, 1998. Together, they possess around 14% of the company's shares that are listed publicly and, thanks to super-voting stock, 56% of the voting power cast by stockholders. In 2004, the business made its initial public offering (IPO) public. 2015 saw a reorganization of Google into an Alphabet Inc. fully owned subsidiary. The biggest subsidiary of Alphabet, Google serves as a holding company for the corporation's online assets and ventures. On October 24, 2015, Sundar Pichai took over as Google's CEO, succeeding Larry Page, who was appointed CEO of Alphabet. Additionally, on December 3, 2019, Pichai was appointed CEO of Alphabet.
Since then, the business has expanded quickly to provide a wide range of goods and services outside of Google Search, several of which have taken the lead in their respective markets. Email (Gmail), online navigation (Waze & Maps), cloud computing (Cloud), web browsing (Chrome), video sharing (YouTube), productivity (Workspace), operating systems (Android), cloud storage (Drive), language translation (Translate), photo storage (Photos), video calling (Meet), smart homes (Nest), smartphones (Pixel), wearable technology (Pixel Watch & Fitbit), music streaming (YouTube Music), video on demand (YouTube TV), artificial intelligence (Google Assistant & Bard), machine learning APIs (TensorFlow), AI chips (TPU), and more are among the many use cases that these products address. Google has discontinued several products, including Stadia, Glass, Reader, Play Music, Nexus, Hangouts, and Inbox by Gmail for gaming.
The most popular websites in the world are Google and YouTube, followed by Facebook and X (previously known as Twitter). According to market share, Google is also the biggest search engine, mapping and navigation app, email service provider, office suite, video sharing platform, cloud storage and picture supplier, mobile operating system, web browser, machine learning framework, and artificial intelligence virtual assistant provider worldwide. Google is ranked fourth by Interbrand and second by Forbes among the most valuable brands. Regarding matters like privacy, tax evasion, censorship, search neutrality, antitrust, and misuse of its dominant position, it has drawn a lot of criticism.
History
In January 1996, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who were both PhD candidates at Stanford University in California, started Google as a research project. Scott Hassan, the original lead programmer who wrote a large portion of the code for the original Google Search engine, was an unofficial "third founder" of the project. Hassan left before Google was formally founded in order to pursue a career in robotics and founded Willow Garage in 2006.
Theoretically, a more effective method that examined the connections between websites may rank results more highly than traditional search engines, which ranked results based on the frequency with which search phrases occurred on the page. This system, which they named PageRank, assessed a website's relevancy based on the quantity and quality of pages that connected back to the main page. After discussing his ideas with Hassan, Page started coding the code to put his thoughts into practice.
Google was initially funded by an August 1998 investment of $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems. This initial investment served as a motivation to incorporate the company to be able to use the funds. Page and Brin initially approached David Cheriton for advice because he had a nearby office in Stanford, and they knew he had startup experience, having recently sold the company he co-founded, Granite Systems, to Cisco for $220 million. David arranged a meeting with Page and Brin and his Granite co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim. The meeting was set for 8 a.m. at the front porch of David's home in Palo Alto and it had to be brief because Andy had another meeting at Cisco, where he now worked after the acquisition, at 9 a.m. Andy briefly tested a demo of the website, liked what he saw, and then went back to his car to grab the check. David Cheriton later also joined in with a $250,000 investment.
In 1998, Google secured funding from two additional angel investors: Ram Shriram, an entrepreneur, and Jeff Bezos, the creator of Amazon.com.In February 1998, Page and Brin sought venture entrepreneur Shriram for advice and investment. Shriram contributed $250,000 to Google.Because Amazon had purchased Junglee, where Shriram served as president, Shriram was acquainted with Bezos. Shriram was the one who introduced Bezos to Google. Six months following Shriram's investment, Bezos and his wife took a vacation to the Bay Area, where Bezos urged Shriram to meet the founders of Google. Despite the fact that Google's first fundraising round had officially ended, Bezos' position as CEO of Amazon convinced Page and Brin to prolong the round and take his investment.
Growth
The business relocated its headquarters to Palo Alto, California, in March 1999, a city known for being the birthplace of several well-known Silicon Valley technology startups. In response to Page and Brin's early resistance to an ad-funded search engine, Google started selling ads linked to search terms the next year. The ads were all text-based in order to preserve a clean website design. Yahoo!, one of the most well-known websites at the time, announced in June 2000 that Google will take over as its primary search engine provider, displacing Inktomi.
Additionally, in 2001 Google's investors felt the need to have a strong internal management, and they agreed to hire Eric Schmidt as the chairman and CEO of Google.Eric was proposed by John Doerr from Kleiner Perkins. He had been trying to find a CEO that Sergey and Larry would accept for several months, but they rejected several candidates because they wanted to retain control over the company. Michael Moritz from Sequoia Capital at one point even menaced requesting Google to immediately pay back Sequoia's $12.5m investment if they did not fulfill their promise to hire a chief executive officer, which had been made verbally during investment negotiations. Eric was not initially enthusiastic about joining Google either, as the company's full potential had not yet been widely recognized at the time, and as he was occupied with his responsibilities at Novell where he was CEO. As part of him joining, Google to immediately pay back Sequoia's $12.5m investment if they did not fulfill their promise to hire a chief executive officer.
Products & Services
Companies Owned by Google
YouTube
The US-based social networking and video-sharing website YouTube is based in San Bruno, California. It was introduced on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and is available anywhere. After Google Search, it is the second most popular website globally and is owned by Google. With over 2.5 billion monthly users, YouTube has more than one billion hours of video content seen every day. More than 500 hours of video material were being added to the site per minute as of May 2019.
Google purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion in October 2006. Because of Google's ownership of YouTube, the platform's income strategy has evolved beyond only selling ads to including premium content like movies and YouTube-only material. A premium membership alternative called YouTube Premium is also available for ad-free video viewing. Additionally, YouTube gave producers permission to take part in Google's AdSense program, which aims to increase income for both companies. YouTube made $28.8 billion in income from advertising in 2021, a $9 billion increase over the previous year. In 2022, YouTube announced $29.2 billion in revenue.
YouTube has grown beyond its main website since being acquired by Google, adding mobile applications, network television, and cross-platform connectivity. YouTube offers a wide variety of video content, including music videos, news, vlogs, short and feature films, songs, documentaries, teasers, live streams, and movie trailers. The majority of video is produced by one person, even in cases where YouTubers and corporate sponsors work together. In an effort to reach a wider audience for their advertisements, well-known media companies including Disney, Paramount, NBCUniversal, and Warner Bros. Discovery have also launched and grown their corporate YouTube pages.
Coporation Year: 2005
Revenue: 29.5Billion
Waze
A Google subsidiary, Waze Mobile Ltd., doing business as Waze, previously FreeMap Israel, offers satellite navigation software for use on smartphones and other devices that support the Global Positioning System (GPS). It downloads location-dependent data over a cellular network and integrates user-submitted journey times and route details in addition to turn-by-turn navigation. Free to download and use, Waze bills itself as a community-driven program.
Waze Mobile, a business established by Israeli businessmen Uri Levine, Amir Shinar, and Ehud Shabtai, created the software first in Israel. Two Israeli venture capital firms, Magma and Vertex Ventures Israel, together with an early-stage American venture capital firm, Bluerun Ventures, contributed funding for the first initiative. Google paid US$1.3 billion to purchase Waze Mobile in June 2013.
The application generates revenue through hyperlocal advertising to an estimated 130 million users
Corporation Year: 2008
Revenue: $966 Million
Google Nest
Smart speakers, smart displays, thermostats, smoke detectors, routers, and security systems with cameras, doorbells, and locks are all part of the Google Nest brand of smart home appliances.
Former Apple developers Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers co-founded Nest Labs in 2010, which was the first company to acquire the Nest brand name. The Nest Learning Thermostat, which was released in 2011, is the company's flagship product and its initial offering. The product has characteristics that are frequently seen in other Nest products, like as sensor-driven, customizable, self-learning, and Wi-Fi enabled. In October 2013, the Nest Protect carbon monoxide and smoke detectors came next. Beginning in June 2015, the business began marketing security cameras under the Nest Cam brand after acquiring Dropcam in 2014.
The company quickly expanded to more than 130 employees by the end of 2012. Google acquired Nest Labs for US$3.2 billion in January 2014, when the company employed 280. As of late 2015, Nest employs more than 1,100 and added a primary engineering center in Seattle.
Corporation Year: 2010
Revenue: $800 Million
Google AdSense
With the help of Google AdSense, website owners in the Google Network of content sites can display text, picture, video, or interactive media ads that are relevant to the audience and content of their websites. Google is in charge of organizing, managing, and maintaining these adverts. They have the option of making money per click or per impression. A pay-per-action service that Google had beta tested was abandoned in October 2008 in favor of DoubleClick, another Google-owned product. Google AdSense brought in US$3.4 billion ($13.6 billion annually) in 2014, accounting for 22% of the company's overall income. Since AdSense participates in the AdChoices program, the triangle-shaped AdChoices emblem is frequently seen in AdSense advertisements.HTTP cookies are also used by this software. More than 38.3 million websites utilize AdSense as of 2021.
Google utilizes its technology to display ads according on the content of websites, the user's location, and other variables. Google Ads is the enrollment portal for anyone interested in using Google's targeted ad system for their advertising. One of the most well-known applications that specializes in making and displaying banner and responsive advertising on websites and blogs is AdSense. Ads that are responsive change to fit the size of the user's device. These adverts are less obtrusive, and their content is frequently pertinent to the website. AdSense is the most widely used advertising network, and it is used by many websites to monetize their web content (website, online movies, online audio material, etc.).Small websites without adequate resources or other significant revenue streams have found AdSense to be very helpful in generating advertising money.
Corporation Year: 2003
Revenue: $224 Billion
Waymo
Waymo LLC is an American autonomous driving technology business that was originally known as the Google Self-Driving Car Project. The company's main office is in Mountain View, California. It is an Alphabet Inc. subsidiary.
In addition to operating commercial robotaxi services in San Francisco, California, and Phoenix, Arizona, Waymo is also testing new services in Austin, Los Angeles, and Bellevue, Washington. It was the first robotaxi service to provide public service without having safety drivers in the car in October 2020.
Dmitri Dolgov and Tekedra Mawakana share the role of co-CEO of Waymo. The business completed many rounds of outside fundraising, raising $5.5 billion. Many automakers, including Stellantis, Mercedes-Benz Group AG, Lyft, AutoNation, Avis, Intel, Jaguar Land Rover, and Volvo, are in collaborations with Waymo.
Corporation Year: 2009
Revenue: $1.4 Billion
DoubleClick
Before being acquired by Google in March 2008, DoubleClick Inc. was an American advertising firm that created and offered online ad serving services between 1995 and 2008. Mostly catering to advertising agencies and the media, DoubleClick provided technological products and services to companies including Microsoft, General Motors, Coca-Cola, Motorola, L'Oréal, Palm, Inc., Apple Inc., Visa Inc., Nike, Inc., and Carlsberg Group. DART (Dynamic Advertising, Reporting, and Targeting) was the company's primary product line. Its goal was to eliminate unsold inventory for publishers and boost the purchasing efficiency of advertisers.
Kevin O'Connor and Dwight Merriman launched DoubleClick in 1995, with its main office located in New York City, USA. In July 2005, it was purchased by the private equity companies JMI Equity and Hellman & Friedman. DoubleClick was bought by Google for $3.1 billion on March 11, 2008. DoubleClick was included under the new Google Marketing Platform name when Google revealed its plans to redesign its advertising platforms in June 2018. DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) became Google Ad Manager 360, DoubleClick Bid Manager became Display and Video 360, and DoubleClick Search became Search Ads 360.
Corporation Year: 1996
Revenue: $3.1 Billion
X Development
Google established X, formerly known as Google X and X Development LLC, in January 2010 as a semi-secret research and development center and organization in the United States. X is based in Mountain View, California, just a mile and a half from Alphabet's corporate offices, the Googleplex.
The goal of X is to create and introduce "moonshot" technologies that have the potential to drastically improve the state of the planet. According to X, a moonshot is the result of bringing together ground-breaking technology, a radical solution, and a large issue. Astro Teller, an entrepreneur and physicist, serves as the CEO and "Captain of Moonshots" of X, supervising all work. The self-driving car project at Google was the lab's initial project.
Corporation Year: 2010
Revenue: $200 Million
Fitbit
Fitbit, Inc. is an American consumer electronics and fitness firm that goes by the moniker fitbit. It manufactures wearable equipment with wireless capabilities, activity trackers, smartwatches, pedometers, and monitors for heart rate, sleep quality, and stairs climbed, along with accompanying software. Google purchased the business in January 2021.
Fitbit ranked seventh in terms of shipments of wearable devices in 2019. With 29 million customers in more than 100 countries, the firm has sold more than 120 million smartphones.
Corporation Year: 2007
Revenue: $1.17 Billion
Verily
Alphabet Inc.'s life sciences research group is called Verily Life Sciences LLC, or simply Verily (previously Google Life Sciences). Prior to Sergey Brin's announcement on August 10, 2015, the company was a part of Google X. Restructuring was finished on October 2, 2015, and the organization became an autonomous subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Verily replaced Google Life Sciences on December 7, 2015..
Corporation Year: 2015
Revenue: $600 Million
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