Don’t Be Evil

1995 - Larry Page, 22, and Sergey Brin, 21, meet at Stanford. Sergey, a student is showing Larry the grounds. According to some accounts, they disagree about most everything during this first meeting.Larry Page Sergey Brin

Larry Page Born March 26, 1973 in East Lansing, MIParents were Computer Science Professors at Michigan State University

Attended East Lansing High SchoolHolds Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan and a Masters degree in Computer Science from Stanford University

As a student he once built an inkjet printer out of Lego bricks

Sergey Brin Born August 21, 1973 in RussiaFather is a mathematics professor at the University of Maryland, and his mother is a research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Attended Paint Branch Montessori School in Adelphi, Maryland as well as home school

Holds Bachelor of Science degree with honors from the University of Maryland, College Park and is on leave from his Ph.D. studies at Stanford

1996 Larry and Sergey, now Stanford computer science grad students, begin collaborating on a search engine called Backrub. BackRub operates on Stanford servers for more than a year -- eventually taking up too much bandwidth to suit the university.

1997 Larry and Sergey decide that the BackRub search engine needs a new name. After some brainstorming, they go with Google -- a mis-spelling of the word "googol," a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros. The use of the term reflects their mission to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web.

1998Google files for incorporation in California on September 4. Shortly thereafter, Larry and Sergey open a bank account in the newly-established company's name and deposit an investor’s , Andy Bechtolsheim, check. They setup workspace in a garage in Menlo Park, CA.

In the earliest days of the internet, search engines had a track record of producing irrelevant results. Page and Brin recognized the need for a better way to sift through the mountains of information.

Page and Brin set out to download and index every site on the internet. They devised a way to rank each page by the number and source of links leading to it.

They built their own PC’s and starting the process of indexing the web. While still students, by 1996, they had indexed 75.2 million URL’s and downloaded 30.6 million pages. Once indexed, using their search – the accuracy of the results could not be denied. Their technology was reported as a milestone in the internet age.

Page and Brin were reluctant to start a company. They were comfortable living a life of academia, but realized that they had a responsibility to share what they had created. They wanted a company they would incorporate the creativity inspired by campus life and to create an environment where innovation would not be stifled by the need to make a profit.

Once Google was incorporated, Brin and Page were reluctant to sell advertising on the website. They worked hard to maintain the clean, simple and quick portal that Google.com remains today.

In 2000, they partnered with Yahoo to become their default search engine. Shortly after, Google reached a billion indexes becoming the world’s largest search engine.

After much deliberation and soul-searching Brin and Page launched Adwords. An ad program that sells keywords and phrases to the highest bidder. To makes sure the search engine user is not confused, the ads are listed on the right side of the results page, with a heading called “Sponsored Links”. The ads are triggered by the words and the phrases typed in by the user. Google wanted to make it clear that it would not take payments to place websites higher in the search results.

The “bidding on keywords” system allowed advertising to be affordable to the smallest of companies.

Google Adwords was the beginning of a long and profitable revenue stream for the company.

Brin and Page wanted to make Google unique as a workplace for it’s associates. They built a state-of-the art campus in Mountain View, CA and offer top notch medical, and health benefits.

Early employees were given stock options which later went on to become very lucrative. They offer child-care, adoption assistance, an on-site cafeteria, doctor, credit union, car wash, dry cleaning, oil change, massage therapy, gym, bike repair and hair stylist.

Google once rented out a movie theatre to show the new Star Wars film to their employees.

Google allows employees 20% of their time each week to work on projects of their own choosing and stress an open-door team environment.

Employees often work long hours, while they are allowed flex time, the competitive work ethic means some employees have been know to average 100 hour weeks.

In 2004, they had a loyal following, and a motto “Don’t Be Evil” to distinguish themselves from other companies like Microsoft who was in court over it’s monopolistic practices.

Google decided to go public. Reluctant, Brin and Page were determined to do the IPO their way. They placed their trust in mathematical equations over Wall Street – who put a premium on relationships and fees rather than what was best for their client.

The company decided to offer bids for stock online much like the way they sold Ads. Novices could participate provided they could buy at least 5 shares at the starting bid price. This was unheard of in IPO’s.

In the SEC Filing, Brin and Page wrote –

“We aspire to make Google an institution that makes the world a better place. We are in the process of establishing the Google Foundation. We intend to contribute significant resources to the foundation, including employee time and approximately 1% of Google’s equity and profits in some form. We hope someday this institution may eclipse Google itself in terms of overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world’s problems.”

The filings gave the SEC officials fits.

“Please revise or delete the statements about providing a great service to the world - to do things that matter – greater positive impact on the world – don’t be evil - and – making the world a better place” the SEC wrote to Google and it’s lawyers. The SEC particularly dis-liked the way CEO Eric Schmidt and founders Brin and Page were referred by their first names so casually. Page and Brin refused to make the changes.

In August, 2004 , 19 million shares were offered at an opening price of $85 per share.

Google China was founded in 2005. Prior to Google China's establishment, Google.com itself was accessible, even though many of its contents were not accessible due to censorship. According to official statistics, google.com was accessible 90% of the time, and a number of services were not available at all.

Since announcing its intent to comply with Internet censorship laws in the People's Republic of China, Google China has been the focus of controversy over what critics view as capitulation to the "Golden Shield Project" (also known as the Great Firewall of China).

Google critics in the United States claim that Google China is a flagrant violation of the Google motto, "Don't be evil".

Google released a statement, in essence saying that although they dis-agreed with the Chinese govenments censorship policy, they believe the people of China were better off with a censored Google service than none at all.

Google had claimed it’s throne as the king of internet search engines. Many other projects were developed in Google labs and research. Most on the basis of employees using their 20% time to work on their own projects. Google went on to develop:

- 72 interface languages including Swedish Chef and Klingon- one of the first blogging sites- Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Moon, Google Sky and Street View- Google Desktop Search, Google Talk, Gmail and Google Reader- Google Docs, Google Finance, Google News, Google Calendar- acquires Adsense, Youtube and Doubleclick- Chrome Web Browser, Google Voice phone service- Google mobile including the Android operating system and Marketplace which powers phones for HTC, Motorola, Dell, Archos, and LG

Google digitizes libraries that include Page’s alma mater University of Michigan, Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, Stanford, Cornell, Columbia and the Library of Congress