Do you know about the remarkable empire that Google has built? Quite an awe-inspiring tale, isn’t it? This journey began in 1996, birthed from a research project by two Stanford PhD pupils, Larry Page and Sergei Brin. In those times, search engines would rate pages based on the frequency of keywords spotted on the page. Nonetheless, these two visionaries, Larry and Sergei, yearned for a more effective system. Their innovative approach involved ranking pages based on the significance of pages that linked back to the original website. Fast-forward to 1998, they formalized their venture, kicking off operations in a friend’s garage. Google has since transformed into the premier search engine globally and has even etched its place as a verb in the English language—To Google. Its quick expansion led to countless acquisitions, expanding the scope of the company’s initial vision. Today, its parent company, Alphabet Inc, has branched out into self-driving vehicles, healthcare, and even the exploration of space. Year after year, it ranks among the leading innovators worldwide, making it a coveted professional destination for engineers (feel free to question your smart friends about their dream workspace). So, whether you’re a tech aficionado or somebody who finds operating a computer challenging, here are 25 captivating facts about the Google empire!
Featured Image: Carlos Luna via Flickr
When a Google employee dies, their spouse can receive half pay for up to 10 years and their kids receive $1000 per month until they turn 19.
Source: businessinsider.com, Image: pixabay 16% of daily searches on Google are completely new. As in Google has never seen them before.
Source: google.com, Image: wikipedia Microsoft has actually created rewards programs (financially oriented) in order to convince people to use Bing instead of Google.
Source: reddit, Image: wikipedia The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button costs Google about $110 million annually because it bypasses all their ads.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia Every minute, there are 2 million searches performed on Google.
Source: nytimes, Image: pixabay Since Gmail launched on 1 April 2004, a lot of people just thought it was an April Fool's Day prank.
Source: washingtonpost Google's first computer storage was actually made out of LEGO because they needed more space for their hard drives than was available at the time.
Source: reddit, Image: wikipedia Google is developing a computer that can program itself (Neural Turing Machine).
Source: telegraph.co.uk From 2010 to 2014, Fortune Magazine named Google the best company to work for in the US.
Source: nytimes, Image: pixabay Google was actually named by accident. Larry and Sergei misspelled "googol", which is a number followed by 100 zeroes.
Source: bbc Google favors dogs over cats. Even in their code of conduct it says that they are a "dog company".
Source: abc.xyz, Image: torange.us Use Google in a way you’ve probably never used it before with these 25 Awesome Google Tricks and Easter Eggs.
Since 2010, every month Google has acquired an average of 2 new companies a month.
Source: wikipedia Google owns the domain googlesucks.com (to prevent other people from owning it!).
Source: domaintools.com Google Maps calculates traffic by computing how fast androids are moving on the road.
Source: ncta.com, Image: wikipedia In 2013, Google funded a company that is researching ways to circumvent death (Calico).
Source: wikipedia In 2014, nearly 90% of Google's income came from advertising.
Source: investor.google.com, Image: pixabay Steve Jobs once called Google to tell them that their "O" had the wrong color yellow gradient.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia In 2010, Nicaragua accidentally invaded Costa Rica because of a mistake in Google Maps.
Source: wired.com Susan Wojcicki, the woman who rented her garage to Larry Page and Sergei Brin, became the CEO of Youtube
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia In the US, Google searches for "why is my poop green" peak around 5am
Source: nytimes.com, Image: wikipedia Google was originally called BackRub
Source: reddit Google claims that GPAs and test scores are useless. There are teams in the company where up to 15% of the employees never went to college
Source: nytimes.com, Google wants to scan every single book in the world by 2020. That would be an estimated 130 million volumes.
Source: pcworld.com, Image: pixabay Google used a camel to create Street View of the desert
Source: cnn, Image: wikipedia Google's first ever tweet was "I'm Feeling Lucky" in binary
Source: mashable.com, Image: pixabay 
