At 25 years old, Google gave its founder a fortune of IDR 1,550 trillion

Jakarta

Google is celebrating its 25th birthday. Its birth was spearheaded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin with a very unique story rarely known to its users.

Google was founded in September 1998 after the idea had been bouncing around in Page’s head two years earlier. He named himself CEO of Google and his partner Brin as co-founder.

Page and Brin met while studying at Stanford University. Brin has a very open and passionate personality, while Page is more introverted. They balance each other out.

Google funding worth $1 million was received from friends and family who believed in Google’s success. The Google office was founded. Not as big as it is now, but it all started in a garage.

In February 1999, the startup was growing rapidly. Page also moved his office from the garage to a new office in Palo Alto, California. Seven months later, they moved their offices again to Mountain View as Google’s business grew.

Google developed so quickly even though it wasn’t making any money at the time. That’s why they started looking for new investors.

They managed to attract new investors on the condition that Page and Brin would retain most of the voting shares and still be able to fully control Google.

The investors agreed, but also set conditions: Page had to step down from his CEO position. Since he was considered inexperienced, they began looking for candidates. The chosen one was Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Novell.

It’s not easy for Page because he is a person who really loves to control things so that they go well. He wants everything to be done correctly and precisely.

Page also found it difficult to leave the CEO position as he believed he would be able to lead Google with Brin’s help. But in the end, Page realized that Google needed an experienced CEO with world-class status so that the company could continue to grow.

Schmidt became Google’s chairman in March 2001 and CEO in August. Schmidt managed to lead Google and finally went public in August 2004. Page and Brin became billionaires.

In 2011, Schmidt felt he had enough to lead Google. Page was again deemed capable of leading his company and he became CEO again. Schmidt has since become chairman of Google.

Then in 2015, Page and Brin decided to form a Google holding company called Alphabet. Page became CEO, Brin became president and Schmidt became executive chairman. Google is now led by a CEO of Indian descent, Sundar Pichai.

In 2019, Page and Brin decided to step down from Alphabet and named Pichai as the new CEO. The two founders of Google now rarely appear in public.

All of Page and Brin’s efforts bore sweet fruit. The assets of both continue to grow and even reach over 100 billion US dollars or more than 1,550 trillion IDR (exchange rate 15,504 IDR).

(aid/rrd)