From Backrub to Alphabet and Gemini: how Google grew from a Stanford search project
Google began as an attempt by two Stanford graduate students to improve web search. That experiment eventually grew into one of the most influential technology businesses in the world, spanning search, advertising, Android, YouTube, cloud computing, maps, productivity software, devices and artificial intelligence.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford University in 1995. By the following year they were working together on a search engine called Backrub, which used links between web pages as a signal of importance.
The project became Google, a name inspired by “googol”, the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. Google Inc. was incorporated in September 1998 after Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim provided an early US$100,000 investment.
In 2015, Google reorganised under a new holding company called Alphabet. As of 18 September 2026, Sundar Pichai remains chief executive of both Google and Alphabet, while Page and Brin continue to sit on Alphabet’s board.
This is the story of how a search engine became a much broader technology platform.
The story began with Backrub at Stanford
Page and Brin were trying to solve a difficult problem created by the rapidly growing web: how should a search engine decide which pages matter most?
Their early system analysed links between pages. Rather than treating every page equally, it used the structure of the web itself to infer authority and relevance.
The system was initially called Backrub. It later became Google, matching the founders’ ambition to organise an enormous and rapidly expanding body of online information.
A cheque helped move Google from dorm rooms to a garage
Google’s official history records a critical moment in August 1998, when Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote Page and Brin a cheque for US$100,000.
Google Inc. was incorporated soon afterwards. The young company moved into a garage in Menlo Park, California, owned by Susan Wojcicki, who later became an important Google executive and CEO of YouTube.
Google’s early identity was deliberately unconventional, from home-built servers to a minimalist search page that stood apart from the cluttered portals common at the time.
Search became an advertising business as well as an information tool
Search attracted users because it helped them find relevant pages quickly. Google then built an advertising business around commercial intent.
AdWords, launched in the early 2000s, allowed advertisers to place text ads against search queries. That model connected advertising with what a user was actively looking for rather than only with demographic assumptions.
The advertising engine gave Google the revenue to fund free consumer products and large-scale computing infrastructure.
Search remained central, but the company increasingly used its infrastructure and software expertise to enter adjacent markets.
Gmail, Maps and YouTube expanded Google beyond search
Google introduced Gmail in 2004 with an unusually large amount of free storage for the time. Google Maps followed in 2005 and developed from a mapping website into navigation, local search and location infrastructure used across mobile devices.
Google acquired YouTube in 2006, bringing the rapidly growing video platform into its ecosystem.
Those services helped transform Google from a search destination into a collection of products used throughout the day.
Android gave Google a mobile operating system
Google acquired Android in 2005 and later developed it into an open mobile operating system used by many smartphone manufacturers.
Android became strategically important as internet usage shifted from desktop computers to phones. It allowed Google services such as Search, Maps, Gmail and YouTube to remain central to mobile computing while giving hardware partners an alternative to building their own operating systems.
Google later expanded its own hardware presence through Nexus and then the Pixel brand.
Chrome made the browser part of Google’s platform
Google launched Chrome in 2008. The browser emphasised speed, simplicity and security at a time when web applications were becoming more sophisticated.
Chrome eventually became part of a wider platform strategy that included ChromeOS and Chromebooks.
For Google, control over the browser also mattered because the browser is the layer through which users access search, advertising, web applications and cloud services.
Google Cloud turned internal infrastructure expertise into a business
Running Search, Gmail, YouTube and other global services required enormous computing infrastructure.
Google turned parts of that expertise into commercial cloud products. Google Cloud now spans infrastructure, databases, analytics, collaboration software and AI services.
This business is structurally different from advertising but draws on the same underlying capabilities in distributed computing, software engineering and data-centre operation.
Alphabet separated Google from the company’s other bets
By 2015, Google had expanded into areas that looked increasingly distant from search and advertising.
Larry Page announced Alphabet as a new holding company in August 2015. Google became the largest business inside Alphabet, while more experimental operations were separated into what became known as Other Bets.
Alphabet allowed businesses such as Waymo, Verily and other ventures to operate with more independent leadership while leaving Google focused on its core internet, software and device products.
The restructuring also made it clearer to investors which activities belonged to Google and which were longer-term bets.
Sundar Pichai became the operational leader
Sundar Pichai had joined Google in 2004 and became closely associated with Chrome, Android and the company’s broader product organisation.
He became Google CEO when Alphabet was created in 2015. In 2019, Page and Brin stepped back from day-to-day management and Pichai became CEO of Alphabet as well.
The founders remained directors and controlling shareholders, but operational leadership consolidated under Pichai.
AI moved from research project to core product strategy
Machine learning had been part of Google’s products for years before generative AI became a major public technology category.
Google acquired DeepMind in 2014, invested heavily in neural-network research and built specialised Tensor Processing Units for machine-learning workloads.
Generative AI then pushed those capabilities into the centre of Google’s consumer and enterprise strategy. Gemini became the company’s flagship model family and increasingly appeared across Search, Workspace, Android, Pixel and Google Cloud.
The shift resembles earlier platform transitions in Google’s history. Search created the original company, mobile made Android strategically essential, and generative AI is now influencing how Google redesigns many of its established products.
Search is still the foundation
Despite the breadth of Alphabet, Google’s founding mission remains visible: organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
The way the company attempts to fulfil that mission has changed. Traditional ranked links coexist with maps, video, knowledge panels, voice interaction, visual search and AI-generated answers.
That evolution also brings difficult questions around accuracy, publisher traffic, advertising, privacy and competition. Google operates at a scale where product changes can affect entire online industries.
How Google became what it is today
Google’s growth came from repeatedly turning infrastructure built for one problem into a platform for another.
Search required ranking algorithms and large-scale computing. Advertising monetised search intent. Gmail and Maps expanded user engagement. Android protected Google’s relevance in mobile computing. Chrome strengthened its position on the web. Cloud commercialised infrastructure expertise, and Alphabet created a structure for ventures outside the core business.
Artificial intelligence now connects many of those strands. Google can develop models, run them on its own infrastructure, expose them through Cloud and integrate them into software and devices used by billions of people.
For TechnologyBlog.co.za, this company-history page provides the natural backlink foundation for future coverage of Pixel, Android, Gemini, Chrome, Google Cloud, YouTube and Alphabet’s wider businesses.
Primary sources checked include Google’s official company history, Google’s 20th- and 25th-anniversary material, Alphabet’s founding announcement and Alphabet investor information. Information reflects public material available on 18 September 2026.