Who owns google.com
Google is owned by Alphabet Inc., a multinational conglomerate created in 2015 as a parent company to Google and its many subsidiaries. Alphabet Inc. is a publicly traded company, meaning that it has many shareholders. The company's stock is traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol "GOOGL" for Class A shares and "GOOG" for Class C shares.hdtoday
Google was originally founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998 while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University. They developed the search engine as a research project, and it quickly grew in popularity. Today, Google is known for much more than just its search engine, with products and services including Google Maps, YouTube, Google Drive, Android OS, and more.
As a publicly traded company, Alphabet Inc. is owned by a large number of shareholders, which include institutional investors, individual investors, and the company's founders and employees. As of my knowledge cutoff date in September 2021, some of the largest institutional shareholders were Vanguard Group, BlackRock, and T. Rowe Price.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the original founders of Google, are still among the largest individual shareholders, but they stepped back from active management roles in 2019. At that time, Sundar Pichai, who was the CEO of Google, was appointed as the CEO of Alphabet Inc. as well.
Please note that the ownership structure and the list of major shareholders may have changed since my knowledge cutoff date in September 2021. For the most up-to-date information, you can refer to Alphabet Inc.'s financial filings or check financial news sources.
Since its inception, Google has grown and expanded its product and service offerings. Here are some key areas in which Google operates:
Search Engine: Google Search remains the company's core product and is the most popular search engine globally, with billions of searches conducted daily.
Advertising: Google's primary source of revenue is its advertising platform, which includes Google Ads and Google AdSense. Businesses and individuals can bid for ad placement on Google Search, YouTube, and other Google-owned properties, as well as on third-party websites through the Google Display Network.
Cloud Services: Google Cloud Platform (GCP) provides cloud computing services for businesses, such as data storage, machine learning, and analytics tools. GCP competes with other major cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.
Hardware: Google produces several hardware products, including the Google Pixel smartphones, Google Nest smart home devices, and Google Chromebook laptops.
Software and Operating Systems: Google is the company behind the Android operating system, which powers a significant portion of the world's smartphones and tablets. Additionally, Google has developed the Chrome OS for its Chromebook devices.
Web Services and Applications: Google offers a suite of web-based services and applications, such as Gmail, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides, which are widely used for communication, productivity, and collaboration.
Maps and Navigation: Google Maps is a popular mapping and navigation service that provides directions, real-time traffic information, and location-based services.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning: Google is a leader in AI research and development, with projects such as Google Assistant (a virtual assistant), TensorFlow (an open-source machine learning framework), and DeepMind (a cutting-edge AI research lab).
YouTube: Acquired by Google in 2006, YouTube is the largest video-sharing platform in the world, with billions of hours of content watched every day.
Research and Innovation: Google X, now simply known as "X," is a research and development lab working on innovative "moonshot" projects, such as self-driving cars (Waymo), smart contact lenses, and high-altitude balloons for internet connectivity (Project Loon).
This list is not exhaustive, as Google continues to innovate and explore new areas of technology. As the company evolves, it maintains a strong presence in various sectors, influencing the technology landscape and shaping the way people interact with digital services and devices.
Speaker 0:
Larry page and Sergey Brin were the kind of guys who kept Bill Gates.
Speaker 0:
Journalist Ken Auletta.
Speaker 0:
I said Mister gates.
Speaker 2:
What is your name and I thought he would say apple Netscape.
Speaker 0:
For.
Speaker 2:
Oracle can he said.
Speaker 2:
I worry about some guy in a garage inventing a new technology Microsoft is never thought.
Speaker 2:
Well in ninety eight two guys running around in the hand lettered sign and said Google worldwide headquarters.
Speaker 0:
In
an industry where innovation is just part of the job description Larry
page and Sergey Brin have become virtual masters of the universe of
information gathering.
Speaker 0:
What we don't know Google.
Speaker 2:
A twenty.
Speaker 0:
It's one.
Speaker 0:
And I thought.
Speaker 0:
I meant the other thing not anymore.
Speaker 0:
Silicon
Valley is littered with start ups that have stalled out why these two
computer science geek succeeded may have a lot to do with the nearly
parallel lives they lead before creating together one of the world's
largest and most powerful companies.
Speaker 0:
Written page respectfully declined to participate in this program. Bluestacks10
Speaker 0:
Sergei
Brin was born in the Soviet Union in nineteen seventy three his parents
were mathematicians and Jewish which limited their career
opportunities.
Speaker 0:
Mark well seed is the co author of the Google story.
Speaker 2:
To
Sergei's father went to a conference in Warsaw met a whole bunch of
colleagues from the west saw what life was like outside the Soviet Union
came back sat the family down and said we have to leave.
Speaker 0:
His parents brought with them a sense of purpose they instilled in their son it boiled down to a simple message.
Speaker 2:
Don't
come back with a B. don't come back with the second place award make it
first always and Sergei internalize this and they did form a core part
of his personality.
Speaker 0:
Vikram Larry page was born in nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 0:
His family lived in Michigan and his father was the first person in his family to get a college degree.
Speaker 0:
Both of his parents were in similar fields as brands.
Speaker 2:
Second
generation computer science which at that time was very unusual because
computer science is really only developing as a field in the sixties
and you're both of their parents were advanced degrees they see
themselves is on a mission and that mission.
Speaker 2:
It really does spring from the.
Speaker 0:
In two thousand nine page shared that mission with the graduating class at the university of Michigan.
Speaker 2:
You
know what it's like to wake up in the middle the nights with a dream
and you know how if you don't have a pencil and pad but then it will be
completely gone by the next morning I had one of those dreams when I was
twenty three.
Speaker 2:
When
I suddenly woke up I was thinking what if we could download all out and
just keep the wings and I grab a pen and started writing.
Speaker 2:
Soon
after I told my adviser Terry Winograd you would take a couple of weeks
for me to download the web he nodded knowingly fully aware it would
take much longer the wise enough not to tell me.
Speaker 0:
Stanford professor in engineering consultant to Google Terry Winograd.
Speaker 2:
Larry just thinks of ways of doing things that you might not expect.
Speaker 0:
Sergei was a lot like.
Speaker 2:
He also was someone who.
Speaker 0:
Really
want to think outside the box to say if that sounds like it's
impossible let's try it it was nineteen ninety five at Stanford
University when the headstrong Overachievers first met.
Speaker 2:
One
of their standard professors used to say well the difference between
the two of them was that Sergei would just burst into my office without
asking Larry would knock and then first and.
Speaker 0:
In
the nineties searching the internet was rudimentary chip or miss often
returning results that were useless and the process was very slow.
Speaker 0:
The U. typing your query.
Speaker 2:
You
did something else while he waited for it to get the results then you
went back and looked at the results and most of them were completely.
Speaker 0:
Page and Brin pushed for something better.
Speaker 2:
Sergei's big interest was in.
Speaker 0:
Taking.
Speaker 2:
All
the pages on the worldwide web I'm trying to make sense of it trying to
find patterns the starting to do record of back links they called.
Speaker 0:
Page noticed that behind every web page there were hundreds or even thousands of other pages that link to.
Speaker 0:
You recall moment that would change the so called.
Speaker 2:
Information.
Speaker 0:
Then they realized that list of backlinks could be used for ranking.
Speaker 0:
More backlinks and show you were better pay.
Speaker 0:
If a lot of other websites link to a webpage that probably meant.
Speaker 2:
Users thought it was good.
Speaker 2:
Genius is recognizing that this kind of algorithm could give you the kind of results that matter the most to searchers.
Speaker 0:
Page and Brin had their secret formula now it needed a name.
Speaker 2:
The guys were looking for a great name that was gonna capture the grandiose vision that they had and hit upon this giant number.
Speaker 2:
One with a hundred years after it commonly known as Google.
Speaker 2:
G. O. O. G. O. L. they just covered it was owned they said you know what let's put a friendlier spelling on it.
Speaker 0:
On September fifteenth nineteen ninety seven they registered Google as a website.
Speaker 2:
And.
Speaker 0:
Cajun grin dropped out of their PhD programs to focus on attracting funding for their young company it wouldn't be easy.
Speaker 0:
Investors like Russia Iran was skeptical.
Speaker 2:
There
were five search engines at the time and so I said maybe any one of
them might be interested in the technology the world didn't need a six
search engine.
Speaker 2:
Google just didn't fit into the conventional wisdom.
Speaker 0:
Of what a website should do which was to keep users from migrating to another page.
Speaker 2:
Google did the unthinkable it helps users.
Speaker 0:
Explore the wider with.
Speaker 2:
Larry
page and Sergey Brin that's different attitude they said we don't want a
portal we want to get the search results of them in a split second.
Speaker 2:
The
one sunny morning Larry and Sergey or sitting on the porch of a
Stanford professor friend of theirs in any battle shot I'm one of the
founders of Sun Microsystems pulls up in his sports car walks up gets
about a ten minute demo says this is fantastic this is the next big big
thing and write a check on the spot for a hundred thousand dollars made
out to Google thank.
Speaker 0:
Even levy is senior writer of wired magazine.
Speaker 2:
This
is the way things work in Silicon Valley you know it sounds as standing
the someone which is right a hundred thousand dollar check and get you
going but you have to realize that there was a.
Speaker 2:
Heddon
pedigree to this they were Stanford their professors had done this
before this is a pretty good bet we may lose a hundred thousand dollars
but we could win big there and at the time we had no company at all and
in fact we couldn't cash the check.
Speaker 2:
His father was not legal documents you know none of that stuff.
Speaker 0:
And even though they had the seed money they still needed much more cash no one was buying into Google.
Speaker 0:
They went back to lunch around.
Speaker 2:
They found three other investors and together we raised enough money to get them off the ground.
Speaker 0:
Enough money was one million dollars including two hundred and fifty thousand dollars from Jeff basis of Amazon dot com.
Speaker 0:
Hey
Jim Brennan court ready Google on September fourth nineteen ninety
eight and they moved into one of those storied garages in Menlo Park
they attracted the attention of two well known Silicon Valley venture
capitalist Michael Moritz of sequoia capital.
Speaker 2:
And John Doerr.
Speaker 0:
Kleiner Perkins.
Speaker 2:
Both.
Speaker 0:
One is an exclusive deal.
Speaker 0:
Bringing page.
Speaker 2:
Said no deal.
Speaker 2:
Dozens of mine and their tender ages mid twenties.
Speaker 2:
Just say we won't take money from only one venture capitalist we were sure that neither one of those controls and split it.
Speaker 0:
In June of nineteen ninety nine Google issued its first press release announcing the investment twenty five million dollars.
Speaker 0:
Britain
page now needed to hire first rate engineers people who would meet
their exacting standards Chris soccer is a former Googler.
Speaker 2:
It was intense hiring process any company in the world I had somewhere between twelve and fifteen interviews over just a couple.
Speaker 0:
They
created the headquarters they called the Googleplex offering employee
services like free food and child care and develop the informal company
motto of don't be evil.
Speaker 0:
But Google still wasn't making money.
Speaker 2:
Larry would come in and I was able how you can make money from this he was in this room smiles and figure that out.
Speaker 0:
Google
co founders Larry page and Sergey Brin had created a new search engine
but it yet to find a way to turn it into profit they didn't like the
idea of using advertising to cashier.
Speaker 2:
At first they thought advertising was grumpy commercial kind of unseemly.
Speaker 0:
They're
famously sparse homepage was originally designed by Sergei Brin unlike
rivals Yahoo and AOL page and Brin refused to clutter their home page
with.
Speaker 2:
Ads.
Speaker 2:
We
won't take any ads on a page because we think to build user trust we
want to not feel like we're blocking them down with advertisements.
Speaker 0:
Yet no ads at all Matt no revenue page and Brin had to accept advertising as their only option.
Speaker 2:
Their
search engines in the early days which when you went to page the first
few things which look just like regular search results happen to be
things that the sponsors of those hand paint the search engine to put
there and they said that's not good for users I don't want the things
that somebody else wants me to see how many things that I want to see.
Speaker 0:
Then they found a compromise they could live with they invented a new way of targeting text ads triggered by search requests.
Speaker 0:
Instead
of distracting pop ups or flashing ads the small ads were placed above
and next to search results it's familiar now but revolutionary back
then.
Speaker 0:
They
called it Google adwords businesses big and small could take control of
their advertising dollars by purchasing as key to certain words.
Speaker 0:
David Becker was a project manager on adwords.
Speaker 2:
Advertisers
love the system because they only pay when someone actually clicks on
their ads for many advertisers it's the most efficient form of marketing
they ever have.
Speaker 0:
For businesses it was the holy grail a direct connection to their best customers with a massive new revenue source.
Speaker 0:
Exploded.
Speaker 0:
By September of two thousand.
Speaker 2:
Is.
Speaker 0:
Indexed to billion U. R. els and was available in fifteen languages.
Speaker 0:
Still all of Google's success few people outside Silicon Valley knew who had created.
Speaker 2:
Their gave Graham went on to tell the truth.
Speaker 2:
And the judges will reveal Sergei Brin please stand up.
Speaker 0:
But media moguls knew exactly who they were.
Speaker 2:
Barry
Diller was one of the first traditional media executives to physical
guys Larry is sitting there with his PDAs little hand held devices
looking down into his email and this is Larry please I'm talking to you
can we just converse and this is I can do both this is no you can't do
both choose is I choose this.
Speaker 0:
Tremendous growth came other challenging issues for the search giant Google.
Speaker 0:
The venture capitalists behind the company Michael Moritz and John door we're pressuring its co founders to hire a CEO.
Speaker 2:
They
were resistant but they don't want to say you know we can do it but
they thought they could do it they went to twelve thirteen fourteen
years they like any of the people they serve they visited Steve jobs
just to meet him because he was a hero there is and they said to John or
after the meeting why can't he be our CEO.
Speaker 0:
John Doar introduced page and Brin to Eric Schmidt a businessman with an engineering background.
Speaker 0:
You just harder.
Speaker 2:
Please come over to run Google yes so what what's the OBD idea behind that you guys couldn't run it yourself.
Speaker 2:
Kartel supervision.
Speaker 2:
Eric
is a grown in in the room and he's he's in his mid fifties not mid
thirties he's got a lot of experience he's more of a diplomat than they
are and that's needed in dealing with the traditional media world which
they increasingly bumping up against.
Speaker 0:
By the end of two thousand one Eric Schmidt was Google CEO.
Speaker 0:
H. became president of products and brands the president of technology the two founders still shared an office.
Speaker 2:
They
anticipate each other's words the package up there's no sense of
tension between them that's one of the great strengths of the company.
Speaker 0:
With Eric Schmidt in place Google kept up its spectacular growth while its rivals slowly faded away.
Speaker 0:
Search
engines links to three billion web pages and forged a partnership with
AOL which brought them thirty four million new customers.
Speaker 2:
You
have this incredibly profitable company are you gonna give the next
level how are you going to provide the kind of capital growth that they
needed.
Speaker 0:
The solution it was time for Google to go public.
Speaker 2:
Being
a conventional they decided that they were going to hold an IPO unlike
any that Wall Street had ever seen they were going to set the price via
an auction to determine and try to extract the greatest value from the
stock.
Speaker 2:
The
stock price on August nineteenth two thousand four close to just over
one hundred dollars a share making the company worth more than twenty
three billion dollars.
Speaker 0:
The two founders became.
Speaker 0:
Soon the company expanded with Google maps Google news and Google earth.
Speaker 0:
Their idealism and bold ideas had built their reputation but the company was stumbling with their free email service.
Speaker 2:
She now is a great product that was really poorly launched.
Speaker 0:
When users saw ads pop up that were directly related to their personal emails arms when.
Speaker 2:
People
first saw these ads they were shocked because they thought how could
these ads to sow targeted you know reading this this email about you
know my friends vacation down why you're getting ads off why is somebody
snooping in my email.
Speaker 0:
The concern around G. email launched a much deeper fundamental argument about privacy and trust.
Speaker 2:
Do you know how Google is using all the information it collects on you all of the web searches that I've done.
Speaker 0:
For years and years.
Speaker 2:
All
of the emails that I've done attention leak information about health
records information about the books that I'm looking at information
about where I'm going because I'm typing it into Google maps.
Speaker 2:
In a sense they're the Big Brother that we've been talking about all these years.
Speaker 0:
The ultimate Big Brother was about to put their don't be evil philosophy to the test.
Speaker 0:
In
two thousand six will reach an agreement with China for access to their
four hundred million web users with one condition they censor search
results banned topics for brand son of Russian immigrants it was a
troubling decision.
Speaker 2:
This Friday meeting.
Speaker 2:
With passion about growing up in the Soviet Union.
Speaker 2:
And what that meant.
Speaker 2:
What
happened including everybody they wanted to hear from all the employees
there surveying swallowed hard but they all said a Google this is the
biggest concern marking or we have to be.
Speaker 2:
Google agreed.
Speaker 0:
To Chinese demands.
Speaker 2:
I
know there's a lot of controversy surrounding that now we have to self
censor fair amount but we were actually able to sense a less and less
and our local competitors they're also sense of us most so I feel like
our entry.
Speaker 2:
I made a big difference but things started going downhill.
Speaker 0:
Google discovered a cyber attack on their systems.
Speaker 2:
The more troubling thing to me is that we discovered the motivation.
Speaker 2:
Which we believed to be to gain access to G. email accounts in particular for a Chinese human rights activists.
Speaker 0:
Google pulled the plug and redirected users to unfiltered site in Hong Kong that isn't subject to censorship.
Speaker 2:
Yeah this is real life.
Speaker 2:
The loan right now.
Speaker 0:
YouTube began as a place for people to share home videos.
Speaker 2:
Its top search.
Speaker 0:
By July two thousand six users were uploading sixty five thousand videos a day and Google wanted in.
Speaker 0:
They
went out and acquired you two for one point six five billion dollars in
Google stock YouTube's founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen we're
thrilled.
Speaker 2:
Hey we have been acquired by Google thanks D..
Speaker 0:
In
two thousand six Google CEO Eric Schmidt acknowledged that to stay
competitive the company also had to enter the world of mobile phones in
fact a year earlier they had quietly bought another start up android a
small company with software for cell phone.
Speaker 2:
There's
so many more mobile phones than personal computers as people do more
more searches on mobile phones it should eventually balance out again
this year.
Speaker 0:
It
didn't take years apple's phenomenal success with the iPhone in two
thousand seven set a collision course between the two companies.
Speaker 0:
Months later Brin and page announced their android operating system.
Speaker 2:
Variety.
Speaker 0:
Of mobile phones.
Speaker 0:
Their long time idol Steve Jobs slams Google for entering the phone business and accused them of trying to kill the iPhone.
Speaker 0:
At the Google developer conference in may of two thousand ten Google's vice president of engineering toward.
Speaker 2:
Apple.
Speaker 2:
If Google did not.
Speaker 2:
We faced a draconian future a future where one man one company one device one would be our only choice.
Speaker 2:
That's a future leads all walks.
Speaker 0:
And Google is battling with another giant in the tech world.
Speaker 2:
The bump up against Microsoft in so many ways.
Speaker 2:
They
have a browser chrome Microsoft has internet explorer Google also
acquired companies that dealt with online versions of word processing
software and spreadsheets things that directly go after Microsoft
jugular with their office product.
Speaker 0:
Microsoft fired back with its own search engine being which debuted in spring of two thousand nine.
Speaker 2:
Can I ask what you make of being do you like it.
Speaker 2:
Speaker 2:
I think you're being user.
Speaker 2:
Yeah
no no I I I use I use all search engines out there I think that would
be as a reminder to us resent the search is a very competitive market.
Speaker 2:
Being.
Speaker 0:
Ironically offered Google protection by letting them Dodge accusations of being a monopoly.
Speaker 2:
Bill
Gates this is the company that is closest to us as a competitor they
are just as hungry as ruthless you use at work and I as we are there is a
danger they make a lot of them the blind spot because these two
founders really think of themselves as noble.
Speaker 2:
They
think that what they're doing is good for the world they've always
enjoyed feeling like the underdog feeling like the evil empire was
Microsoft and now they've discovered that some people think they're the
evil empire.
Speaker 0:
Their own slogan do no evil.
Speaker 2:
Was.
Speaker 0:
Suddenly being used against.
Speaker 0:
Google's
quest on the road to organize the world's information took a new turn
call it a detour with an ambitious feature they called street view and
attempt to photograph every neighborhood.
Speaker 2:
On the planet for.
Speaker 2:
It would eventually include.
Speaker 0:
Ordinary images from main street to extraordinary views of Antarctica.
Speaker 0:
But
the effort also took private user information from unsecured wifi
locations many people felt their privacy had been compromised.
Speaker 2:
Google.
Speaker 0:
Acknowledged the mistake and agreed to destroy data.
Speaker 0:
The
company known for search was struggling to diversify and was facing an
aggressive new challenger mark Zuckerberg Facebook's one billion users
spend more time on the social network posting valuable information that
is invisible to Google search engine information all advertisers.
Speaker 2:
She.
Speaker 0:
So
far Google's efforts at social networking has failed what its founders
are keenly aware that its users habits on the web change Google will
have to make.
Speaker 2:
A lot.
Speaker 0:
More friends.
Speaker 0:
In January two thousand eleven in a startling Silicon Valley shake up Eric Schmidt announced that.
Speaker 2:
Google.
Speaker 0:
Was
fined its management structure and that Larry page was ready to leave
and would take over from him as CEO co founder Sergey Brin will focus on
new products Schmidt tweeted day today adult supervision no longer
needed.
Speaker 0:
In fourteen years Google grew from start up technology giant hitting fifty billion dollars in revenue in two thousand twelve.
Speaker 0:
In the space of a year Larry page and Sergey Brin both got married.
Speaker 0:
Page
married Stanford bio informatics PhD Lucinda Southworth in December two
thousand seven on Richard Branson's island Branson was also his best
man.
Speaker 0:
Bryn
Merritt biotech specialist and will jet skiing in the Bahamas with his
partner Larry page standing up for him they both have two children.
Speaker 0:
Google
dot org its philanthropic arm has contributed over one hundred million
dollars to various organizations from clean energy two global health.
Speaker 0:
Larry page and Sergey Brin have changed the way we get information.
Speaker 2:
It's
been a great experience for me to see them grow over the last twelve
years that I've known I feel extremely proud of what they've
accomplished.
Speaker 2:
I always had this kind of irreverence as part of their attitude which is what made them so creating this great.
Speaker 2:
I think.
Speaker 2:
People.
Speaker 2:
Users who care about.
Speaker 2:
The planning just can't sit down.
Speaker 2:
They built a company GOOGLE.COM.
Thanks for Reading.
Please Share if like this.
0 Comments