A few of the highlights:
- The original name of Google was Backrub. This was because the algorithm ranked pages baed on how many "back links" a page had. "Did you Backrub that?" It doesn't quite sound right does it?
- Stanford University hold the patent on the Google algorithm. They were given 1.8mm shares for the right to use the patent by Google. Stanford sold the shares for $336 million in 2005. No wonder there football team is winning now.
- Larry Page and Sergey Brin are the two richest guys in America to not make any political contributions. However, Google spent more on lobbying last year than Yahoo, Facebook and Apple combined. It just goes to show you that if you don't grease the giant Washington political machine you have to spend much more in other ways to be heard.
- Larry Page and Sergey Brin originally wanted to be academics. Their initial search engine was shopped around to a lot of potential buyers including Yahoo who turned down their offer to sell it to them for $1 million in 1997. 5 years later, Yahoo offered the pair $3 billion to buy them out and Page and Brin turned them down. Google is now worth $150 billion. Ouch!
No comments:
Post a Comment