Gadget & Tech News

By Karsten Lemm

On a day in late August, 1998, two Stanford Phd. students managed to make $100,000 with a few mouse clicks by showing their new search technology to Cisco co-founder Andy von Bechtolsheim. The seasoned Silicon Valley executive was so taken with what he saw that he dashed to his Porsche, pulled his check book from the glove compartment and wrote check number 4642 in the name of a company that did not yet exist: Google, Inc.

The two students, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, officially founded their start-up on September 7, 1998. Ten years later, the little search engine that could has become one of the most prominent players on the Internet, dominating its industry like few other companies anywhere. In the U.S., according to comScore, Google enjoys a search market share of over 60 percent – three times as much as its closest competitor, Yahoo. In some countries, like Portugal, Finland and Spain, Google servers handle more than 9 search queries out of 10. Financial success has been equally impressive, with annual sales skyrocketing from a mere $1.5 billion in 2003 to $16.6 billion last year.

As Google is celebrating its tenth birthday, now a company of almost 20,000 people, branching out into ever more services to become a part

of every aspect of our digital lives, Ubergizmo is looking back at one of the first interviews the founders ever gave. Back in January of 1999, Ubergizmo contributor Karsten Lemm, a correspondent for the German newsmagazine Stern, knocked on the door of an apartment house in Menlo Park to interview Brin and Page for an article about Silicon Valley and its start-up culture. Next to the doorbell, a sign caught his eyes. In handwritten letters it said, “Google World Headquarters”. Inside, a handful of twenty-somethings were working on their PCs – mostly in the kitchen. The garage, Silicon Valley’s perennial symbol of entrepreneurship, was overflowing with mountain bikes, knick-knack, and empty computer boxes.

In-between low-level programming, schmoozing their investors, and taking out the garbage, the Google founders took some time out to talk about providing a service to the world, making money with helpful advertising, and wanting to be on par with Yahoo and Amazon. What follows are edited excerpts of their conversation with Karsten, who stopped smiling about the grandiose sign by the doorbell years ago.

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