Google Goes Public
Google's IPO raised $1.67 billion and set the stage for Silicon Valley's modern era
August 19, 2004
Two Students, One Search Engine
Larry Page and Sergey Brin met as PhD students at Stanford University in 1995. Their research into how websites linked to each other led them to develop a search algorithm they believed could rank web pages more accurately than existing search engines. They launched Google in 1998 from a rented garage in Menlo Park, California. The name was a play on "googol," the mathematical term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros — reflecting their ambition to organize the seemingly infinite information on the web. Within months, Google's clean interface and superior results had made it the search engine of choice for millions of users.
The IPO That Made History
On August 19, 2004, Google conducted its Initial Public Offering on the NASDAQ stock exchange. The IPO was unusual in structure — Google used a Dutch auction process that allowed ordinary investors to bid alongside institutions rather than the traditional system that typically favored Wall Street banks and their preferred clients. Shares were priced at $85, valuing the company at about $23 billion. The stock climbed 18 percent on its first day of trading. The IPO created enormous wealth almost overnight — many Google employees who had received stock options became millionaires within hours.
Reshaping the World
Google's IPO marked the beginning of a new phase in the internet economy. The company used its capital to expand aggressively, acquiring YouTube in 2006, developing the Android mobile operating system, and launching services from Gmail to Google Maps. Today Alphabet, Google's parent company, is one of the most valuable companies in history. Google Search handles billions of queries daily and has fundamentally changed how people find information. Compare its rise with the dot-com bubble collapse that preceded it — Google was one of the few internet companies to survive and thrive.