Google

Google is an American multinational corporation. It focuses on search engine technology, cloud computing, quantum computing, computer software, e-commerce, online advertising, consumer electronics, and artificial intelligence.

It was founded on September 4, 1998, by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who were pursuing their doctorates at Stanford University California, at the time. It became public through an initial public offering (IPO) in 2004.

Initially, it operated under the name Google Inc. but in 2017, shifted to Alphabet Inc. It is one of the five companies — alongside Amazon, Apple Inc., Meta Platforms, and Microsoft—commonly called the big tech.

In 2002, Google's AdWords was introduced as a successful pay-per-click ad platform. Subsequently, Google's AdWords and AdSense, which came into existence in 2003 became profitable ventures, followed by the launch of Gmail in 2004.

Alongside its widely acclaimed search tool, other rollouts followed include Google Maps (2005), YouTube (2005), Google Earth (2005), Google Calendar (2006), Google Finance (2006), Google Streetview (2007), Google Android (2007), Google Chrome (2008), Google Voice (2009), Google Labs (2012), and many more.