WEBVTT - How Did Google Get Its Start? 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.800 Guess what, Mango, What's so the other day I was 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:05.120 thinking about our visit to the Google headquarters. You know, 0:00:05.160 --> 0:00:07.240 this was several years ago. You remember this. Oh yeah, 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:10.320 that's when we tried to stump those employees, right, And so, listeners, 0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:12.200 Mango and I were invited to speak to the employees 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:14.160 of Google after the release of one of our Mental 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:16.759 Flaws books. This was around the time where it felt 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:20.640 like everybody was talking about just how smart Google employees were, 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:22.840 you know, all these tests that they had to take 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:25.239 and everything they had to go through just to get hired. 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:27.520 And so we thought we'd put them to the test, 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:30.520 and we were sure we could stump them. We designed 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:33.640 the world's geekiest crossword puzzle. So to explain what this was, 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:36.720 we decided to not only create a really difficult cross word, 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:39.839 but we decided to hire an expert in constructed languages 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.000 and make all of the answers and constructed languages as well, 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:46.560 like Elvish and cling On and Esperanto. And we were 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:49.080 so cocky that we sent a message ahead of time 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:51.519 saying that anyone who finished the puzzle would win a 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:54.080 free subscription to Mental Flaws and a few gifts from 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:56.959 our online store. Well, not only were there more than 0:00:57.000 --> 0:00:59.920 a dozen people who completed it, they were actually correct 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.959 thing are grammatical mistakes. Yeah, it's pretty great. And as 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:05.880 it turns out, that's not the only smart thing these 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:08.960 people have done. They've also built this little company called Google. 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:11.800 That's impressive. Yeah, and I guess it's pretty big now. 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:14.360 And uh, you know, we were curious about how they 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:16.520 managed to pull off this total dominance in the search 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:19.560 engine world. So today's show is all about the origins 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:43.640 of Google. Let's dive in. Hey their podcast listeners, Welcome 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:46.120 to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:48.520 I'm joined by my good friend man guest Ticketer, and 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:50.520 on the other side of the soundproof glass one of 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:53.360 the half dozen people on the planet who still uses 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:57.120 dog pods his search engine of preference. That's our friend 0:01:57.160 --> 0:01:59.680 and producer Tristan McNeil. I do respect him for this choice. 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:01.760 I know you just want those search results just dog 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:05.080 piled up, right. So I was thinking about search engines 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:07.400 a little bit. When you were in high school, did 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:10.000 your library have one of those like thick telephone books 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:13.360 of websites? Totally? I remember that was so ridiculous. Like 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:16.600 people actually thought that's how you search the web, Like 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:18.520 that's how you'd find a great history site or whatever, 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.160 and and you look up the page. But there's even 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:24.240 a magazine called Yahoo Internet. It was the most magas 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:27.760 told you about websites, like your websites you should go to. Yeah, 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:32.080 even like Roger Ebert was a contributor. I love that magazine. Anyway, 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:35.040 So I pulled some numbers for today's show, and according 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:39.080 to Statista, Google's worldwide market share amongst search engines roses 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:42.920 highs eighty nine percent last year. I know, so dominant. 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:45.200 And I was thinking about it. It's really hard to 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.280 name more than like five search engines five I know. Well, 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:53.120 I mean you can get like Google bing Yahoo, asked Jeeves. 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:55.760 That's still around, I think so. And then and then 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:57.920 you're just like grasping right like or or you're in 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:01.800 dead website territory like x it and Alta Vista. The 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:04.560 one of choice for me as a high schooler was 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:06.440 I think it was called web Crawler. Do you remember 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:08.760 that one? Yeah, tipe and web Crawler. I'm sure one 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:10.680 of the others bought it up. But anyway, well, for 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:12.720 all the Googlers out there, and there must be a 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:15.280 lot of you. Today's show is really for you. Now. 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:17.919 In past episodes, we've delved into the histories of iconic 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:21.280 companies like Amazon and Sears and Ikea, and so now 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:23.720 we're doing the same for Google, because while it may 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:26.359 be the world's most popular search engine and the second 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:29.600 most valuable brand this side of Apple, that hasn't always 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:31.480 been the case. So we want to take some time 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:33.440 to explore the early days of the company, and you know, 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:35.360 kind of trying to make sense of the business model 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:38.840 that propelled this link fetching startup from this rented garage 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:41.680 all the way to the five million square foot Google 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:44.840 Plex it calls home today. That's right. But before we 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:46.480 even get to the garage, we we need to talk 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:49.760 about a dorm room at Stanford University because that's really 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:54.120 where Google's story starts. So this is back and engineering 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:56.840 major from the University of Michigan named Larry Page was 0:03:56.920 --> 0:04:00.280 just beginning his computer science PhD program at Stanford, and 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:02.360 he was searching for a topic for his thesis and 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:05.400 he kept coming back to the fairly new phenomena that 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.440 was the Internet. As an engineer, Page was interested in 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:10.840 the math behind it, and he actually recognized that each 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:12.920 web page was a point on a graph, and that 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:15.320 each link on a given page was a connection between 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:18.240 the points and this underlying structure he gave the Worldwide 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:21.000 Web it's form, and Page really wanted to understand it 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:23.000 from the inside out. All right, but you know, kind 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:25.600 of getting this group on the Internet's link structure seems 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:28.360 pretty far off from actually building your own search And 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:30.719 just so I'm curious, like, what's the line of thinking 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:33.240 that leads from one to the other. So you've got 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:35.200 to remember that Page was getting an early start on 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:37.400 his thesis, so he still had plenty of time to 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:40.520 find the final shape of his project. And one realization 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:42.560 that pointed him in the right direction was that the 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:45.320 Internet didn't provide a way to tell which websites were 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:47.919 linking to a given page. So, for example, if you 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:50.559 go on someone's tumbler page, right, you can follow links 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:53.120 from one page to another, but you can't actually tell 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:56.160 which sites link back to that person's tumbler. Is that true? 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:59.720 I have to admit I don't really use tumbler, And 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:02.719 so Page was annoyed. But yeah, so he thought it 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:04.680 was important to know who was linked to who man, 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:07.200 And while that might not be super interesting to most 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:09.240 of us, it actually makes a lot of sense why 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:11.360 it would be a concern for someone like him. I mean, 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:15.240 think about how important publishing is among academics. For math 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:18.919 and science scholars, especially, publishing research papers is a chief 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:21.200 way to make a name for yourself, and the only 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:22.919 thing that might get you more credibility is to be 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:25.680 cited as an authority in someone else's paper. And that's 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:28.800 because citations make up the backbone of academic papers. Like 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:31.640 you're always citing previously published research as evidence to back 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:34.520 up your points. So for the academic community, it's not 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:37.400 just the original content that determines the paper's worth, it's 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:39.640 also the citations in that paper and the number of 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.800 future papers that later cited. So the links are kind 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:45.560 of like a form of citations. As he's putting this 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:47.840 idea together, that's right. So in page his mind, the 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.640 whole Internet was more or less based on a citation system, 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:53.680 except that, unlike an academic publishing nobody was keeping track 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:56.480 of which pages were actually being cited by others. Okay, 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:58.360 so that it's it's starting to make sense here. So 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:00.520 in the academic world, if you saw that, you know, 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:02.800 like a chemistry professor's paper had been sighted by a 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:05.800 hundred other chemists, you could walk away from that being 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:08.880 fairly confident that it was an important paper. And so 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:10.560 what you're saying is Page wanted to find a way 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.239 to apply that kind of ranking system to the Internet 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:16.120 as a whole, exactly, and he figured that by counting 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.560 up the back links associate with every web page on 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.600 the Internet, you could actually determine the importance, or at 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:24.680 least the relative popularity of each one. And with that 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:28.080 goal in mind, project BackRub was born. You know, we've 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:30.320 talked about this fact before that that it was called 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:32.720 BackRub at first, But I don't think I actually know 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:34.400 how they came up with that, do you do? You 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:36.000 know why I was called that at first? I know, 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:37.760 I initially I thought they just had like a closet 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:41.200 full of masseuses. Actually it goes back to the idea 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:45.760 of retrieving and quantifying back links. So that would explain 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:47.680 the backpart. But but what about the rub I need 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:50.400 I need to know the rub man go why the rub? Well, 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:52.640 the program built for backroub was actually known as a 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:55.440 web crawler, because you know, like you're saying, it crawls 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:57.799 the whole Internet and he counts up links as it goes. 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:00.839 So I guess Backroub just sounded better than back roll. 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:02.920 I don't know. I mean they both found a little 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:04.680 crazy to me, so I'm kind of glad they ended 0:07:04.760 --> 0:07:06.680 up changing names to it. But but maybe Larry Page 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.240 doesn't bear the full blame for that, because he actually 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:12.440 had a lot of help in bringing back rub to life. Right. Yeah, 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:14.840 So the other co founders for gay Brin also got 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:17.080 into the act around then too, and at the time 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:19.520 he was a second year grad student at Stanford's Computer 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:22.520 science department. He was ultimately the one who helped Page 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:24.360 figure out how to make use of a rock count 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:27.200 of links that Backgroub accumulated. So were these guys like 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.200 old friends. I'm curious how did Brand get involved? I mean, 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:32.000 did he just want to help out a friend, you know, 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:34.720 trying to start this project or not? Really? In fact, 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:37.360 for a while they were really antagonistic. And the two 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:39.560 had first met in the summer of nine. This is 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.080 when Page was visiting the Stanford campus as a prospect. 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:44.200 Then Britain was the tour guide and he took him 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:47.200 around and also showed him nearby San Francisco. But it 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:50.880 didn't actually go that well. So Britain Page argued the 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.360 entire time, really and they debated everything that came up 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:56.400 during the tour, and and they weren't shy about their 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:59.320 initial dislike for one another either. So there's this two 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:01.840 thousand and five I've interview with Wired, and in it, 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:05.480 Page says Serge is pretty social, he likes meeting people. 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:08.760 I thought it was pretty obnoxious. He had really strong 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:11.560 opinions about things, and I guess I did too. And 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:13.840 Brian's own account kind of just shows that the whole 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:17.960 feeling was mutual but maybe also not that serious. He said, quote, 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:20.920 we both found each other obnoxious, but we say it 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:23.200 a little bit jokingly. Obviously we spent a lot of 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:25.080 time talking to each other, so there was something there 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:27.440 and we kind of had a bantering thing going on. 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:30.480 Oh man, that's pretty interesting. So they were fast for enemies. 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:33.240 So after first impressions like that, like what made them 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:36.800 want to work together? Well, pages projects sound amazing and 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:39.720 this uh sort of made its way around campus and 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.600 Brin was actually attracted to the challenge. He'd already bounced 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:44.640 between a few different thesis topics of his own, but 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:46.679 none of them seemed half as interesting in light of 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:49.560 Backrupt And as Bryn put it, I talked to lots 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:52.360 of research groups and this was the most exciting project 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:55.880 because it tackled the web, which represents human knowledge, and 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:58.920 because I liked Larry. So see, they truly liked each other, 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:02.199 just like uh, Tommy Boy or Stepbrothers or any good 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:05.480 buddy comedy. Just like that. I mean, they definitely had 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:07.360 their work cut out for them, though, I mean crawling 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:10.040 the whole web. There's actually this site I've never heard 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:11.839 about until Gabe told us about it, but it's called 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:15.240 Worldwide Web Size dot com and it gives a daily 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.280 estimate of how big the Internet is. And today the 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:22.119 Internet contains at least four point four nine billion pages, 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:24.200 and these are the ones that we can see. So 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:26.840 it's a ton of links to count. Yeah, But but 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:29.719 to be fair, Backroub launched almost twenty five years ago 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:32.000 and the Web was only made up of about ten 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:34.880 million documents back then, which you know, don't get me wrong, 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:37.520 there's still an insane amount of links between those pages. 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:39.880 But you've got to remember Page and Britain weren't just 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.080 trying to count all those links. They were actually looking 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:44.000 for a way to rank the pages being linked to, 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:47.800 But but ranked by what? Like earlier you mentioned ranking 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.880 pages by importance, But what what makes one web page 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:54.360 more important than another? Sure? So the pair's ranking system 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:56.880 was designed to favorite links that came from important sources 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:00.400 while downplaying those that didn't. So, for example, there are 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:02.960 all kinds of different sites that link to Amazon, and 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.320 some of those links might come from business partners like 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:08.160 Whole Foods, but others just come from random people like 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:10.920 I don't know, like a teenager who's sharing gift ideas 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:13.320 on his blog. And from most people's point of view, 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:15.960 the business partner would be the more important link. Right. 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:18.200 That makes sense, But to an extent, it still feels 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:21.000 like a pretty human centric judgment call on this. I mean, 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:24.560 how would search engine know how to prioritize the company's 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:28.960 business partners over just their customers. Well, it wouldn't unless 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:31.200 you were able to translate that human measure of importance 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:33.959 into a set of criteria could recognize. And this is 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:37.000 really where page and Brand's biggest innovation comes in. It's 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:39.960 this algorithm known as page rank, and yeah, it is 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:43.680 actually named after page himself, and using this algorithm, BackRub 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:45.839 was actually able to keep track of both the number 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:48.080 of links into a particular site and the number of 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:50.760 links into each of those linking sites. So, to go 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:53.280 back to the Amazon example, like, imagine that only a 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:57.080 few other sites linked to the teenagers blog in a friends, family, whatever. 0:10:57.480 --> 0:10:59.160 Since most of the sites that linked to his are 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:02.360 likely personal as well, they probably don't have many sites 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:04.840 linking to them either. But on the other hand, there 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:07.080 are thousands of sites that linked to Whole Foods, and 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:09.640 plenty of those sites also have thousands of sites linking 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:12.719 to them, So page rank would recognize this distinction and 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:15.800 deemed the Whole food site more important than the Teenagers 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:19.000 site with respect to Amazon at least. All right, so 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:22.040 it's importance by way of popularity. Then, you know, it's 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:25.320 also not a perfect system, but it's definitely pretty ingenious 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:27.400 the way they came up with this, And I'm also 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:29.280 guessing it didn't take long for Page and Brand to 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:32.400 realize these page rankings could make for a pretty incredible 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.960 search engine. Yeah not at Also, they quickly found the 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:39.319 backrupt delivered better results than you know, any other search 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:42.960 engine out there, and because engines like Alta, Vista and exite. 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:46.640 We're only pulling in ranking sites based on giving keywords. 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:48.920 You could get linked to sites that really weren't that 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:52.320 authoritative or useful. They didn't have that secret weapon of 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:55.000 a link counting algorithm like page rank. But Page and 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:58.040 Britain search engine wasn't just superior at the time. Its 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:00.480 design meant that it would only get better and better 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:03.640 the bigger the Internet grew, and as more pages and 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:06.360 links were added to the web, the BackRub engine scaled 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:09.679 accordingly and was made to become more accurate. I mean, 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:12.440 it was a phenomenal design and it's actually from this 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:15.840 infinite scalability that we get the name Google. The founders 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:18.280 chose to play it as a word on Google, which 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:20.640 is uh the term for the number one followed by 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:23.800 a hundred zeros. I mean, honestly, anything is better than 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:27.440 the name BackRub. So good choice there. But all right, 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:29.640 so they have a name, they have a working engine, 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:33.280 but you know, complexity aside. This is still a school project, right, like, 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:35.600 it's not a business at this point. Yeah. So the 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:37.840 first version of Google was actually released as a feature 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:40.880 on the Stanford website in August of nineties, which by 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:43.160 the way, was only one year after Page and Brand 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:46.079 first met and, as we said, immediately hated each other. 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:48.120 And wait, now that we've covered Google and how it 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:50.040 got it start, let's talk a little bit about it 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:53.720 that made the transition to you know, a proper company. Sure, 0:12:53.760 --> 0:13:08.839 but before we do, let's take a quick break. You're 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:10.760 listening to part Time Genius and we're talking about how 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:13.840 Google became the go to source for information on well 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:17.240 just about everything. Okay, So, by the fall of ninety six, 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:19.600 Larry Page and Serge Brand knew they had to hit 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:21.800 on their hands, but they weren't sure if they were 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:24.600 ready for all the responsibilities and headaches that come with 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:27.320 starting and running a business. I mean, doing so would 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:31.120 mean leaving Stanford early without graduating, and that was a 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:34.439 tough pill to swallow given their academic backgrounds. Or they 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:36.760 obviously went for it anyway. So so what caused them 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:39.640 to change their minds? Ultimately They're big push came from 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:44.079 Brian's college advisor, offering a bit of perspective. He said, uh, look, 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:46.600 if this Google thing pans out, then great, If not, 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:49.040 you can return to graduate school and finish your thesis. 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:52.160 And that seems sensible enough to brin. So he said, yeah, okay, 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:54.240 why not, I'll just give it a try. I love 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:56.559 how nonchalant this whole thing was. Like, I know they 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:59.199 can't know then what they know now, but just think, 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:01.280 get this idea of like, okay, like ditch school and 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:04.280 start a multibillion dollar tech company. You want to do it? Okay? 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:06.680 I mean there actually was a little hesitation in there. 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:10.120 Apparently they brought the idea to Excite and asked them 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:12.520 to buy it for one point six million dollars one 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:15.160 point six million, I know, And and there was actually 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:17.040 a discussion they had it In the story I read, 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:19.440 it was really more Larry Page trying to sell the idea. 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:21.920 But he said he'd stay with Excite for like a 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:24.000 few months, and then he wanted to return to school. 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:27.680 But the CEO of Excite said BackRub was actually too 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:30.880 effective and it would actually drive people off the site 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:32.680 too quickly, like he wanted to slow it down to 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.600 its speed, just to make sure that the customers stayed 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.080 on the search engine and looked at display ads. And 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:42.160 then like the talks broke down from there, and and weirdly, 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:45.280 like while there's talk of conversation for page in those discussions, 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:48.200 there's actually no mention of Britain, at least that's what 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:51.680 business insiders reporting in the memos showed. That is so strange, 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:54.080 all right, So they took their professor's advice. They moved 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:56.240 out of the dorm room and the Google's first office 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:58.200 you know, which, as we mentioned, was actually just a 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.479 garage and the suburbs of I think was Menlo Park, California. 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:05.360 You know. This is August of and shortly after that, 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:07.440 the duo received an investment I think it was a 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:10.040 hundred thousand dollars and this was from the co founder 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:13.600 of Sun Microsystems. This was actually a pretty risky move. 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:17.200 I mean, Google wasn't even incorporated as this legitimate company yet, 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:19.520 so they were forking over a good bit of money 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:23.800 for this unproven private enterprise just a couple of college dropouts. 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:26.560 I mean, it's definitely not a safe bet. Yeah, So 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:29.000 I read that their first investment check was actually made 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:31.920 out to Google, Inc. Which, as you said, didn't exist yet. 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:34.600 So Patroon Brent figured, hey, now might be a good 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:37.720 time to incorporate, and so they did. Wow. Of course 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:40.480 that investment paid off for everyone in the end. In fact, 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:42.320 we talked about the garage that they rented that was 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:45.040 from somebody named Susan W. Jicki And and she went 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:47.200 on to become the marketing manager for Google, and I 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:50.520 think she was their sixteenth employee. Well today she's the 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:53.800 CEO of YouTube. That's awesome. And I know from our 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:57.360 Amazon episode that all kinds of eccentric business practices and 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:00.080 cost saving measures crop up during the garage based days 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:02.680 of these giant companies. So like you remember the bell 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:05.200 Amazon employees would ring whenever they made a sale, or 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:08.160 those makeshift desks they called together from old doors. Did 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:10.760 do you come across anything like that for Google? Oh definitely, 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:12.840 I mean there's there's a bunch of examples. But you 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:15.640 know how companies use these big server racks and cabinets 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:17.600 to to keep you know, like they're all their computing 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:20.240 power and everything. Well, the rat Google started with was 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:24.440 built entirely from legos. This was actually a pretty smart move. 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:26.640 You know, they were pretty cash strapped and it helped 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:28.880 them expand along the way as long as they had 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:31.680 some you know, extra bricks lying around. But actually the 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:34.280 most famous bit of a reverence is probably the rotating 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:36.640 assortment of those Google doodles that show up on the 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:39.280 site's landing page. And believe it or not, they also 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.000 got their start in Susan's garage. I didn't realize they 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:45.160 went back that far. According to Public Radio International, they're 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:49.120 well over four thousand different Google doodles today, but the 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:53.440 very first one dates back to August thirty. N Now, 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:55.920 all the stress from their impending in corporation was really 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:58.560 starting to get to the guys, so before they even 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:01.120 finished all the necessary pay or work, they decided to 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:03.240 spend a week of the Nevada Desert at the annual 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:06.639 burning Man Festival. Serious. Yeah, it's so funny because, like 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:08.639 you'd think of it as a thing now where like 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:11.240 over Norquist is going and all these c t O 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:14.040 s I like have to show up. But this was 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:16.280 twenty years ago. I know, it's pretty wild. So so 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:18.159 they just had a vision for the doodle out and 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:21.080 the fly off. Well, no, the first toodle actually came 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:23.080 in the form of this out of office message that 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:25.880 page and brand added to the company's homepage before they 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.320 headed out to the desert. I guess they weren't planning 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:29.840 to spend a lot of time in their computer at 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:32.760 Burring man, but you know, appropriately enough. They decided to 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:35.640 use that burning man logo just a little stick figure guy, 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:38.520 and they placed it behind the second oh in Google, 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:41.520 and the guys liked the idea of decorating the company 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:44.359 logo as a way to mark notable events, and so 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:46.600 much so. In fact, two years later, the founders asked 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:48.639 one of their interns to drop up a doodle for 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:51.320 Best Deal Day. I love that this was the next 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:53.720 one that they decided. But the result was a hit, 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:56.520 so Page and Brand requested more and then promoted the 0:17:56.560 --> 0:18:00.480 intern to the rank of chief Doodler. I feel like 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:02.399 his parents must have been so proud. Well, I mean, 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:03.920 I don't know how proud they were then, but they 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:06.760 definitely should be now. So the guy's name is Dennis Wang, 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:09.680 and I know when we visited Google, that was probably 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:12.240 the most excited we got. We were like, dude that 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:16.480 I think we even took a picture that was pretty awesome. Well, 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:19.280 in addition to cranking out about fifty doodles per years 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:22.640 since two thousand, he actually later became the company's international 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:25.960 webmaster too. That's pretty amazing, And I do love how 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:27.720 that seems to be a theme with these guys. Like 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:30.040 the woman who read them her garage became one of 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:32.359 their c e o s. And the guy who made 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:34.240 the funny drawings was put in charge of all their 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:38.200 international content. You know, it's pretty cool. And obviously they've 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:41.600 won lots of awards for employee satisfaction. You know. It 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:44.000 was funny when when we went out to the Google campus, 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:46.439 which was you know, forever ago, it just seemed like 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:49.280 such a dream place to work. Like they did your laundry, 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:51.760 people had their dogs with them. There were these like 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:54.960