Google is a multinational technology company that specializes in internet-related services and products. It is one of the largest and most influential companies in the world, with a market capitalization of over $1 trillion.
The history of Google began in 1995, when Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two Stanford University graduate students, developed a search engine called BackRub. The search engine used a novel algorithm that analyzed the link structure of the internet to rank the importance of web pages.
In 1996, Page and Brin registered the domain name "Google.com" and officially launched their search engine. The name "Google" was derived from the word "googol," which refers to the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros.
Google quickly gained popularity, and in 1998, the company received a $25 million investment from Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins. The following year, Google moved into its first office in Palo Alto, California.
In the early 2000s, Google continued to grow rapidly, and the company introduced a number of new products and services. In 2002, it launched Google News, a news aggregator that collects news stories from around the web. In 2004, it introduced Gmail, a free email service with an innovative feature called "Google Labs," which allowed users to test new features and provide feedback.
In 2005, Google went public in one of the largest initial public offerings in history. The company's success attracted the attention of other technology giants, and in 2006, Google entered into a partnership with Apple to become the default search engine for the Safari web browser.
In the following years, Google continued to expand its product offerings, launching services such as Google Maps, Google Street View, and Google Earth. The company also entered into the mobile phone market with the release of the Android operating system in 2007.
In 2010, Google introduced Google Instant, a feature that predicts and displays search results as you type. The following year, the company launched Google+, a social networking service that aimed to compete with Facebook.
In 2015, Google restructured itself as Alphabet Inc., a conglomerate that includes Google and other subsidiaries. Under the leadership of CEO Sundar Pichai, Google has continued to expand its product offerings, including the release of the Google Assistant, a virtual assistant powered by artificial intelligence.
Today, Google is a dominant player in the technology industry, with a vast array of products and services that touch the lives of billions of people around the world. The company has also faced criticism for its size and power, and it has been the subject of numerous antitrust investigations. Despite these controversies, Google remains one of the most successful and influential companies in the world.