Google’s History: Ram Shriram’s Early Investment & Key Facts

The Stanford Meeting and the BackRub Prototype

In 1995, Larry Page arrived at Stanford University to study computer engineering, crossing paths with fellow student Sergey Brin during a campus tour. Page’s parents were computer experts and Brin’s mother worked as a NASA scientist. While the two initially argued during a walk through the hills of San Francisco, they soon forged a partnership. For his PhD thesis, Page decided to build a search engine that ranked links between pages rather than just looking at keywords. They initially named the project “BackRub” to reflect its reliance on backlinks. By 1996, working on Stanford’s homepage, Page and Brin developed the “PageRank” algorithm, which determined how important each web page was and became the foundational formula for Google Search.

Early Funding and the Yahoo Buyout Rejection

Operating out of a garage in 1998, the founders faced skepticism when seeking investment, with critics asking why the world needed a sixth search engine when five already existed. Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, broke the deadlock by writing a $100,000 cheque. Angel investor Ram Shriram and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos followed with $250,000 investments each, while Craig Silverstein joined as the company’s first employee after 12 to 15 rounds of interviews. By 2002, internet giant Yahoo offered $3 billion to buy Google. Page and Brin countered with $5 billion, believing Google was destined to organize all the world’s information rather than operate merely as a search engine. When negotiations failed, the founders walked away, later launching a $27 billion IPO in 2004 as Yahoo’s market position declined.

Revolutionizing Email, Mobile, and Video

Google expanded beyond search by redefining digital communication and media services. On April 1, 2004, the company launched Gmail, offering 1 GB of free storage at a time when competitors Hotmail and Yahoo provided just 2 to 4 MB, leading many to initially mistake the launch for an April Fools’ joke. Today, Gmail serves more than 1.8 billion users. Google followed by launching Google Maps in 2005 and acquiring Android Inc. for $50 million that same year to secure an open-source mobile operating system. Later in 2005, when Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim launched YouTube as a short-video sharing platform, Google acquired it for $1.65 billion, outbidding Microsoft, Yahoo, and Viacom.

Alphabet Restructuring and the Transition to Sundar Pichai

In 2012, Larry Page faced a challenging period after developing vocal cord paralysis, which weakened his voice and made speaking difficult, leading him to step back from conference calls and press events. To accommodate an expansion beyond search into healthcare, energy, and self-driving cars, Page and Sergey Brin established Alphabet Inc. as Google’s parent company in 2015. Page became CEO of Alphabet, Brin served as president, and Sundar Pichai was appointed CEO of Google. In 2019, Page and Brin stepped back completely from day-to-day operations, handing leadership of Alphabet over to Pichai, who has since guided the company into a leadership position in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing.

Frequently Asked Questions