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Google’s 28th birthday on September 27, 2026, offers a look back at the journey of a company that began as a Stanford research project and grew into one of the world’s most valuable companies. Its story took a decisive turn in 1998 when an investor wrote a $100,000 cheque to a startup that did not legally exist.
Google’s Early Beginning
Larry Page and Sergey Brin began developing their search technology at Stanford University in the mid-1990s. Their project, initially known as BackRub, focused on organising information on the expanding World Wide Web. Its approach to ranking webpages helped distinguish it from search engines.
By 1998, the project had attracted attention beyond Stanford. Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim met Page and Brin and was impressed to invest $100,000. However, there was a problem: the cheque was made payable to “Google Inc.” even though Google had not yet been incorporated.
The Cheque That Changed Everything
The investment pushed the founders to formalise their research project as a company. Google Inc. was incorporated on September 4, 1998, transforming the Stanford project into a business.
The founders subsequently moved their operations to a garage in Menlo Park, California, associated with Susan Wojcicki. The modest setting became an important chapter in Google’s history as the company worked to improve its search engine, expand its infrastructure and attract more users.
Google’s Growth: From Search Engine To Technology Giant
Google’s growth accelerated as internet usage expanded. Search remained its core product, but the company moved into areas including online advertising, email, maps, video, mobile software and cloud computing.
In 2004, Google went public, marking another milestone in its transformation from a technology startup into a global corporation. In 2015, Google became the central company under Alphabet, a corporate structure created by Page and Brin to organise Google and its expanding portfolio of businesses.
A Global Digital Presence
Over the years, Google’s products have become part of everyday digital life for billions of people. Its ecosystem now includes Search, YouTube, Android, Chrome, Maps, Google Cloud and artificial-intelligence technologies.
The company’s founders have also stepped away from day-to-day management. Sundar Pichai became Google’s CEO in 2015 and later became CEO of Alphabet in 2019.
From a research project dependent on university resources to a company valued at more than $4 trillion in 2026, Google’s journey illustrates how a technology idea can scale when research, investment and commercialisation come together.