Internet – the earlier years. Marked by 56k dialup modems that made an awful popping, crackling and hissing noise the younger WiFi generation will never know about. “Surfing” the internet was a new frontier – like the Old West; unsettled, and who knew what was beyond the next horizon. My brother, James, was hooked from day one. Before too long he had me online as well. It all started so innocently; a free floppy disk from AOL (America On Line). Yes, I said “floppy disk” – we’re talking real old school here!
A few weeks of surfing around and I was ready for more than what AOL had to offer – I wanted to surf the larger internet. Trouble was, what was out there and how did one go exploring? My brother said I should try a search engine and suggested a few. Months went by and I was happily surfing around the ‘net. During prayer time I sensed something was coming to the internet that would be big. Really BIG. I called my brother and shared this with him – I also told him that it would have something to do with the number one followed by a hundred zeroes and it would be a search engine.
It’s around that time that two young men, Larry Page and Sergey Brin meet at Stanford College. Soon after they begin collaborating on a search engine called BackRub, which is the name of a term paper that Larry Page wrote about search engines.
They later rename the search engine, and the new name is a play on the word “googol” which in math is a term that means the number 1 followed by 100 zereos. The new name for their search engine is “Google”. The companies motto was established as “Don’t Be Evil”. That was replaced in 2015 with “Do the Right Thing”.
Also in 2015, they re-organized into a company called Alphabet.