It started in a garage. Well, technically, it started in a messy Stanford dorm room before Susan Wojcicki rented out her garage to two guys named Larry and Sergey. Now, Google compie 27 anni, and it feels weird to think about a world where "Googling" isn't a verb. Honestly, if you’re under thirty, you probably don’t even remember the "Yellow Pages" or the sheer frustration of AltaVista’s irrelevant search results.
The year was 1998. Bill Clinton was in the White House. People were obsessed with the Spice Girls. And meanwhile, two PhD students were obsessed with "BackRub"—the original, slightly creepy name for their search engine. They wanted to organize the world's information. It sounded like an impossible, maybe even arrogant, goal. But here we are. 27 years later, the company isn't just a search box; it’s an ecosystem that tracks your steps, filters your emails, and knows your coffee order before you do.
From BackRub to Alphabet: Why Google compie 27 anni matters
September 27th isn't just a random date on a corporate calendar. It marks the transition from an academic project to a global utility. When Google compie 27 anni, we have to look at the math. The name itself is a play on "googol," which is a 1 followed by 100 zeros. Larry Page and Sergey Brin weren't thinking small.
Most people think Google won because it was the first. It wasn't. Yahoo was huge. Lycos was a thing. Ask Jeeves was... well, Jeeves was there. Google won because of PageRank. Instead of just counting how many times a word appeared on a page, they looked at who was linking to whom. It was a popularity contest based on authority. It changed everything.
Today, that same logic—evolved a trillion times over—powers the AI that suggests what you should type next. But it’s not all sunshine and colorful logos. As Google compie 27 anni, the company faces more antitrust heat than ever before. The Department of Justice is knocking. Competitors like OpenAI are nipping at their heels. It’s a strange birthday for a giant that suddenly looks a little bit vulnerable.
The Garage Era was actually a real thing
We love the myth of the garage. It’s the ultimate Silicon Valley trope. For Google, the garage at 232 Santa Margarita Ave in Menlo Park was where the first employee, Craig Silverstein, started coding. They had a colorful Lego-themed server rack.
Seriously. Legos.
They used the bricks to expand the storage because they couldn't afford high-end cabinets. That scrappiness defined the early culture. You’ve probably heard of "Don't Be Evil." It was the unofficial motto. It’s funny looking back at that now, especially as the company manages data for billions of people. Some critics say they dropped that motto for a reason. Others argue it’s still the North Star. Whatever you believe, the shift from a garage to the "Googleplex" is the definitive success story of the late 90s dot-com boom.
The AI Pivot: More than just a Search Engine
If you think Google is just about finding a recipe for lasagna, you're missing the forest for the trees. Since 2016, Sundar Pichai has steered the ship toward being an "AI-first" company. This isn't just marketing fluff. Every time you see a "featured snippet" that answers your question without you having to click a link, that’s the AI at work.
But there’s a tension here.
Google’s main bread and butter is ads. If the AI gives you the answer immediately, you don't click on ads. This is the "innovator's dilemma" that experts like Clayton Christensen warned about. As Google compie 27 anni, the company is trying to figure out how to be a chatbot and an ad agency at the same time. It’s a messy transition.
- Gemini (formerly Bard): Their answer to ChatGPT.
- SGE (Search Generative Experience): A way to summarize the web so you don't have to read it.
- Waymo: Self-driving cars that are actually roaming the streets of Phoenix and San Francisco right now.
- DeepMind: The genius branch that solved protein folding, something that could literally cure diseases.
The things Google knows about you (and why it’s creepy)
Let's be real for a second. 27 years of data is a lot. Google probably knows more about your health than your doctor. It knows your political leanings. It knows when you're planning to quit your job.
Is it a fair trade?
We get world-class maps for free. We get "unlimited" (sorta) email. We get the collective knowledge of humanity at our fingertips. But the cost is our privacy. In the EU, regulators have slapped Google with billions in fines over the years. They want more transparency. They want more competition. As Google compie 27 anni, the tension between "free services" and "data mining" is at an all-time high.
Why do they have so many birthdays?
If you're a trivia nerd, you might notice that Google’s birthday has hopped around. In the early 2000s, they celebrated it on September 7th, September 8th, and even September 26th. Since 2006, they’ve stuck with the 27th. Why? Because that’s the day they first posted a doodle to celebrate their birthday. It’s a bit arbitrary, but when you’re a trillion-dollar company, you can pick whenever you want to blow out the candles.
The Future: Will there be a 50th birthday?
Technology moves fast. Netscape was the king of the world once. Nokia was untouchable. Now they're footnotes.
📖 Related: The Microwave Oven Invention Date: What Really Happened in 1945
Google is facing a "Code Red" internal threat from generative AI. When you can just ask a bot to write a poem or plan a 3-day trip to Rome, why would you scroll through ten blue links? The next few years will decide if Google remains the gateway to the internet or if it becomes the next Yahoo—a legacy brand that everyone uses but nobody loves.
They are betting big on hardware too. The Pixel phones are finally getting good. The Nest home devices are in every other living room. They want to be the ambient OS of your life.
Actionable steps for the Google-era user
Since Google compie 27 anni, it’s a good time to do a digital hygiene check. You use their tools every day, so you might as well use them better.
- Run a Privacy Checkup: Go to your Google Account settings. Use the "Privacy Checkup" tool. You can actually set your data to auto-delete after 3 or 18 months. Do it. There’s no reason for Google to keep your location history from 2014.
- Master Search Operators: Stop just typing sentences. Use quotes for exact matches (e.g., "best pizza in Rome"). Use the minus sign to exclude words (e.g., jaguar -car if you want the animal). It saves you so much time.
- Check Your Subscriptions: Google is moving toward a subscription model with Google One and YouTube Premium. Look at what you’re paying for. Most people pay for storage they don't actually need because they never delete blurry photos.
- Try the AI, but Verify: Gemini is cool, but it "hallucinates" (aka lies). If you use Google’s AI tools for work or school, always cross-reference the facts. Don't trust the machine blindly.
- Diversify your Search: Don't let one algorithm decide what you see. Use DuckDuckGo for privacy or Perplexity for sourced AI answers once in a while. It keeps your "filter bubble" from getting too thick.
Google’s 27th year is a milestone of survival. From a Stanford research paper titled "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine" to a global superpower, the journey has been anything but boring. Whether you love them or find their data collection terrifying, there’s no denying that the world is smaller, faster, and a lot more searchable because of those two guys in a garage.
The next decade won't be about organizing information; it will be about synthesizing it. Google has to prove it’s still the smartest kid in the room.