Google's 25-year journey from dorm to internet dominance

investing.com:

(Reuters) — More than 25 years ago, two students at Stanford University brainstormed in their dormitory and came up with an idea — to create an internet search engine that would organize web pages and also rank them.

Initially called BackRub, the startup grew into one of the world's most valuable and influential companies, Google.

Google's products, including Gmail and search, are now used by billions and its co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, rank among the richest people in the world.

Here are some milestones in the history of the tech giant, whose parent is now known as Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL):

YEAR EVENT

1995-1996 Page and Brin meet at Stanford University and

create a search engine named BackRub.

1998 The startup, now renamed Google, gets $100,000

in funding from Sun Microsystems co-founder

Andy Bechtolsheim.

1999 Google announces $25 million in funding from

Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins in its

very first press release, and officially

announces the term «Googlers» to the world.

June 2000 Google becomes the default search engine

provider for Yahoo, one of the most popular

websites at the time.

October Launches AdWords, the online advertising

2000 platform that would become core to Google's

business.

2001 Eric Schmidt is named Google's chief executive

officer and chairman of the board of

directors.

April 2004 Google announces it is testing the release of

Gmail, with up to 1GB of storage capacity.

August Launches initial public offering of roughly

2004 19.6 million shares, at an opening price of

$85 per share.

February Launches Google Maps for desktop.

2005

August Acquires mobile startup Android.

2005 Launches Google Talk instant messaging

service.   

2006 Buys online video