Google recently announced the formation of Alphabet, an umbrella corporation that will separate the company’s internet search business from its forays into robotics, biotechnology, and other areas of innovation. Here are some of the most notable milestones in Google’s 17-year history:
- 1995: Larry Page and Sergey Brin meet at Stanford University, where they become fast friends after discovering a common interest in owning and selling the personal information of millions of people
- 1998: Google abandons attempt to organize internet with Dewey Decimal System
- 2001: Google first cited in high school research paper bibliography
- 2004: Gmail launched, forever changing the way people attempt to trigger the release of dopamine by repeatedly clicking the refresh button
- 2006: Google acquires YouTube for $1.6 billion in effort to gain access to trove of “Master Of Puppets” drum tutorial videos
- 2007: Google campus Wi-Fi enabled
- 2008: 4,000 servers quietly dropped off at CIA headquarters
- 2009: Opening of Googleplex’s first prison
- 2012: First time person with Google Glass is silently flipped off behind their back
- 2015: Executives create new parent company Alphabet to answer criticisms that Google could stand to be more ominous and opaque
- 2045: Supreme Omnicommander Larry Page grants amnesty to deserters of Google Drone Army