Google

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This article is about the company. For the search engine, see Google Search. For other uses, see Google (disambiguation).

Then-CEO, and former Chairman of Google Eric Schmidt with cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page (left to right) in 2008

Google LLC (/ˈɡuːɡəl/ (listen)) is an American multinational technology company that focuses on artificial intelligence,^[9] search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, and consumer electronics. It has been referred to as the “most powerful company in the world” and one of the world’s most valuable brands due to its market dominance, data collection, and technological advantages in the area of artificial intelligence.^{[10][11][12][13]} It is considered one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft.

Google was founded on September 4, 1998, by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were PhD students at Stanford University in California. Together they own about 14% of its publicly listed shares and control 56% of the stockholder voting power through super-voting stock. The company went public via an initial public offering (IPO) in 2004. In 2015, Google was reorganized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Google is Alphabet’s largest subsidiary and is a holding company for Alphabet’s Internet properties and interests. Sundar Pichai was appointed CEO of Google on October 24, 2015, replacing Larry Page, who became the CEO of Alphabet. On December 3, 2019, Pichai also became the CEO of Alphabet.^[14]

The company has since rapidly grown to offer a multitude of products and services beyond Google Search, many of which hold dominant market positions. These products address a wide range of use cases, including email (Gmail), navigation (Maps), cloud computing (Cloud), web browsing (Chrome), video sharing (YouTube), productivity (Workspace), operating systems (Android), cloud storage (Drive), language translation (Translate), photo storage (Photo), video calling (Meet), smart home (Nest), smartphones (Pixel), wearable technology (Fitbit), gaming (Stadia), music streaming (YouTube Music), video on demand (TV), artificial intelligence (Assistant), machine learning APIs (TensorFlow), AI chips (TPU), and more. Discontinued Google products include Glass, Google+, Reader, Play Music, Nexus, Hangouts, and Inbox by Gmail.^[15][16]

Google is known for its highly ambitious technological innovations aimed at solving humanity’s biggest problems.^[17] Some of these innovations include quantum computing (Sycamore), self-driving cars (Waymo, formerly the Google self-driving project), smart cities (Sidewalk Labs), and transformer models (Google Brain).^[18]

Google and YouTube are the two most visited websites worldwide followed by Facebook and Twitter. Google is also the largest search engine, mapping and navigation application, email provider, office suite, video sharing platform, photo and cloud storage provider, mobile operating system, web browser, ML framework, and AI virtual assistant provider in the world as measured by market share. On the list of most valuable brands, Google is ranked second by Forbes^[19] and fourth by Interbrand.^[20] It has received significant criticism involving issues such as privacy concerns, tax avoidance, censorship, search neutrality, antitrust and abuse of its monopoly position.

Contents

• 1History
  • 1.1Early years
  • 1.2Growth