Google is an American multinational corporation that specialises in providing Internetrelated services.

These include search, cloud computing, software and online advertising technologies. The name Google was a play on the word googol, a mathematical term for the number ten to the hundredth power. Google was created by Larry Page and Sergey Brin during their time at Stanford University. Google went from what was an underestimated website to serving worldwide as the most visited website in the world. Google started as a research project when Larry and Sergey were both PhD students at Stanford University. At that time, search engines, such as Yahoo! and Excite were very successful. However, they were always competing with each other, and in doing so they lost their focus of the business. Realising that search engines needed a change, Larry Page had a vision to make search different, and by doing that, he launched Google. Larrys vision started with the knowledge that the web was running a continual popularity contest on its own content. He also realised that the amount of times a website was linked to by other sites could be an indication of how useful or relevant it was. This was the start of a new way of searching. Although Google had more original ideas than other search engines, many investors and search companies were not interested in buying or licencing Google. It was turned down by most search companies, including Excite. Larry and Sergey had to seek help from a professor in Stanford, who was also an entrepreneur. He introduced them to Andy Bechtolsheim who was a well-known investor. He ran through a demo of Google and the different elements to it, and it was immediately clear to Andy that Google was a great idea, handing them a $100,000 cheque. This cheque was followed by a handful of other cheques, totalling their money to $1 million. Michael Moritz and John Doerr also saw the potential in Google and both invested $12 million. Although people were now investing money, there was no profitable money coming in as Google was not using advertisements. This was a problem as they had to hire people, pay the people, buy equipment to house their services, and around half a million dollars was being spent each month. Google had to resort to using ads, but they still wanted users to enjoy the website. An idea made by Bill Gross provided the solution to their problem, which was advertising more effectively by selling key words and sponsored links. Larry and Sergey met up with Bill, not agreeing on any sort of deal, but soon came up with AdWords, which was very similar to Gross idea, and they were sued for this action. Google has grown remarkably over the past 15 years going from a rejected business to a multi-billion dollar company. Google has developed its appearance and the amount of services available. The company now has over 70 offices and over 40 locations with just under 45,000 employees. Google now provides a wide range of services worldwide, such as Google Maps, Gmail, and YouTube. Since its birth, Google has become a major part of the internet. It is the product of a unique idea and two determined scholars who thrived to succeed. It shows how one idea can change the world.

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