On Sunday Google will be 10 years old.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google Inc. on Sept. 7, 1998, with four computers and $100,000 that they received from an investor.
Today Google has 20,000 employees and a $150 billion market value.
Page and Brin, are now both 35 now and worth nearly $19 billion apiece.
A true “Only in America” rags to riches story.
And as much as we complain about Google, its must be asked where would you be a domainer if Google never was.
Where would the domain industry be?
Would there have been an “industry”?
Maybe the more important question is will there be a domain industry after Google
Happy birthday Google
I don’t think Google made the domain industry. Guys like Rick Schwartz were monetizing adult domains when search engines were just smart directories. Then came GoTo/Overture/Yahoo with the PPC model. Google just came along and made it bigger and better with their superior search engine.
How much is that investor’s $100,000 worth today?
Mike,
As someone who was using the internet for business in the 90’s I think we are lucky to have google. I wrote my first web site with a database back end in the early 90’s and I had to resort to (gasp!) newspaper advertising and a feature is a web development book to get the word out about the site! No search advertising back then.
Yahoo, infoseek and alta vista made search like looking for that needle in a haystack. Google gets right to the point with relevant pages (most times). Of course we could rank #1 for pretty much anything in yahoo, infoseek and alta vista too. haha And that’s another reason why google is better.
Happy Birthday Google – the founders of it should have their feet planted on the ground and look after their employees (reward them for their hard work) and let the online browser keep it’s privacy – Very Important
Damir
Google has always looked after their employees.
I believe over 1,000 employees have became millionaires the day the stock went public and many more since then, I’m sure
Try not to take this the wrong way (it’s really not intended to sound harsh), but when ‘domainers’ learn how to develop names, I think you’ll appreciate the free ride you get with a good domain in the algo enough to appreciate the free world you have become to know so well has changed. Darwinism prehaps?