History of Google
Google was founded in September 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while completing doctoral studies at Stanford University. Their search engine, initially called 'BackRub,' used an algorithm that ranked web pages by the volume and quality of links pointing to them. After incorporating as Google, the company expanded from a university project into a commercially viable search service, attracting early investment and growing its index rapidly.
During the 2000s, Google introduced Gmail, Google Maps, and Google News, and acquired YouTube in 2006. Its advertising platform, Google Ads, became the primary revenue source, enabling continued product development. Google expanded into mobile with the Android operating system, productivity software via Google Drive and Docs, and hardware including Pixel devices. In 2015, the company restructured under the parent entity Alphabet Inc. to manage a growing range of ventures in autonomous vehicles, life sciences, and cloud computing.
Google is a co-recipient, alongside Amazon, of Project Nimbus — a contract valued at approximately $1.2 billion, awarded in 2021, to provide cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli government and military. The contract prompted internal protests at Google, with employees staging demonstrations and circulating petitions. In April 2024, Google dismissed 28 workers following a protest held at the company's offices in New York and Sunnyvale, during which participants cited opposition to the company's role in the contract.