Google turns 19! 10 Things you probably didn't know about the company
By Team Asianet Newsable | First Published Sep 27, 2017, 3:34 PM IST- The search giant has decided to celebrate its birthday with a surprise spinner.
- The company was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998.
- Google pays deceased employee's spouse or domestic partner 50 percent of their salary for 10 years.
While Google entered adulthood last year, it is a year older and hopefully wiser. The search giant has decided to celebrate its birthday with a surprise spinner. Yes, spin the wheel and check out some cool surprises here.
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As Google turns 19, we decided to list out 10 things that you probably don’t know about the search giant.
Confusion over its birth date
The company was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998. It is said to have been listed on September 4. However, since 2006, Google has celebrated its birthday on September 27. But, a year before that, it was September 26 and in mid 2000s the birthday doodles went live early September on 7. Yes, that’s a lot of confusion over birth date.
Goats mow the lawn
Taking a ‘low-carbon approach’ to grass-cutting, Google uses animals rather than mowers. It had hired a herd of goats, believed to be as much as 200, to cut the grass at its Googleplex headquarters in Mountain View, California.
Death compensation
Google pays deceased employee's spouse or domestic partner 50 percent of their salary for 10 years. Each child of the employee receives $1,000 per month until the age of 19 or 23 for studies.
Bought Motorola
Did you know, Google had bought Motorola and we also saw the first Moto devices with stock OS and aggressive pricing, and this was even before the Xiaomis and others came with superior features at affordable prices. Google soon sold Motorola to Lenovo, except its most exciting department which was working on the modular Ara phone.
Wanted to build a modular phone
A modular phone would mean, in future, you can replace the camera or battery, without the need to replace the entire phone. And Google was at the forefront with its ambitious Project Ara, under which it would introduce modular phones. Google may have realised that it's a bad proposition for the future of phone market
Started in garage
Google started in a garage. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, graduates of Stanford University, rented a garage from a friend, Susan Wojcicki, in September of 1998.
Smart Jacket
Google has teamed up with Levi's to launch a jacket that can control your smartphones. Yes, you heard that right. It’s a real product out there for you to buy.
Susan Wojcicki
Susan Wojcicki was one of Google's earliest employees and the current CEO of YouTube. She is also the sister of Anne Wojcicki, Sergey Brin’s ex-wife.
Google in healthcare
Google is known to have been working on Smart Lenses that can check glucose levels in diabetes by analysing tears and a wristband that can detect cancer. However, it was mocked by Stat, a Health and medicine publication calling it Google's attempt at making Star Trek fiction into reality. The report ripped apart the project saying former employees aren't sure if the project will ever go live and even called it 'working on unimaginable things' and 'faith-based science'. The current status of this project – we don’t know.
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