Ciro Santilli The 1997 Wayback Machine archives are just priceless: web.archive.org/web/19971210065425/http://backrub.stanford.edu/backrub.html. I'm so glad that website exists and started so early. It is just another university research project demo website like any other. Priceless.
Craig Silverstein was the first employee hired, in 1998: www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/the-friendship-that-made-google-huge
In August 1998 they had an their first investment of $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim, Sun Microsystems co-founder. Some sources say September 1998. This was an event of legend, the dude dropped by, tested the website for a few minutes, said I like it, and dropped a 100$ check with no paperwork. Google wasn't even incorporated, they had to incorporate to cash the check. They were apparently introduced by one of the teachers, TODO which. Some sources say he had to rush off to another meeting afterwards:
Tried to sell it for 1 million in early 1999... OMG the way the world is. It would be good to learn more about that story, and when they noticed it was fuckup.
One of Google's most interesting stories is how their startup garage owner became an important figure inside Google, and how Sergei married her sister. These were the best garage tenants ever!
Bibliography:
- Video "Anne Wojcicki interview by Talks at Google (2018)" has a few mentions, e.g. youtu.be/pDoALM0q1LA?t=173
- www.theverge.com/2019/12/4/20994361/google-alphabet-larry-page-sergey-brin-sundar-pichai-co-founders-ceo-timeline The rise, disappearance, and retirement of Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Good timeline!
One wonders if this name has some influence from the LGBT culture in San Francisco!!!
The guy who coded the initial the BackRub, but left before the company formed. TODO how did he meet Largey Brage? Why did he leave Google?
He co0founded eGroups in 1997 with Carl Victor Page, Jr., Larry Page's brother, and sold it to Yahoo! in 2000 for $432m.
Married a Vietnamese Chick called Allison Huynh from university in 2001. Was unfaithful, and now does not want to split the cash? www.cnbctv18.com/technology/who-is-scott-hassan-the-google-founder-accused-of-divorce-terrorism-10543641.htm Bro, be a man.
That article does mention that he has 13 B in Google shares he bought before IPO, but a net worth of only 1 B. He must have made some insane losses somewhere! It does feel like they gave him a privileged deal because of his early contributions, having that much for just 800 USD sounds unlikely. Hassan likely sold a good part of the shares too early.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9912929/Billionaire-investor-helped-launch-Google-accused-divorce-terrorism-bitter-break-up.html has even better information. He tried to strike a post-nuptial after google went public in 2004, which she declined. So things were already not perfect then. It mentions that the shares would be worth 13 B today, not that he holds them necessarily. He must have sold early.
To be fair, he did work on a lot of cool stuff, not the least the company that crated the Robot Operating System, which is a cool sounding project.
The fact that he does not have a Wikipedia page as of 2022 is mind blowing, especially after divorce details. Maybe Ciro Santilli will create it one day. Just no patience now. OK, done it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Hassan let's see if it lasts. The page lasted but an anonymous user with IP from California removed divorce details and google share ownership details in December 2022, both of which had a New York Times source: www.nytimes.com/2021/08/20/technology/Scott-Hassan-Allison-Huynh-divorce.html. This is the first time Ciro Santilli ever goes into an Edit war: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Scott_Hassan#Divorce_details_removed_as_%22poorly_sourced_material%22_by_anonymous_user_even_though_they_had_a_source_from_the_New_York_Times It feels exactly like the type of thing Scott would have done himself. And he possibly unadvertedly exposed his real IP in doing so: 24.6.226.102. It is pingable, but Nmap analysis shows nothing of interest.
Company co-founded by Scott Hassan, early Google programmer at Stanford University, and Carl Victor Page, Jr., Larry Page's older brother.
They were an email list management website, and became Yahoo! Groups after the aquisition.
The company was sold to Yahoo! in August 2000 for $432m and became Yahoo! Groups. They managed to miraculously dodge the Dot-com bubble. After the acquisition, Yahoo started to redirect them to: groups.yahoo.com as can be seen on the Wayback Machine: web.archive.org/web/20000401000000*/egroups.com The first archive of groups.yahoo.com is from February 2001: web.archive.org/web/20010202055100/http://groups.yahoo.com/ and it unsurprisingly looks basically exactly like eGroups.
Has some good mentions, but often leaves you wanting more details of how certain things happened, especially the early days stuff.
Does however paint a good picture of several notable employees, and non-search projects from the early 2000's including:
- the cook dude
- porn cookie guy
- the unusual IPO process
Paints a very positive picture of the founders. It is likely true. They gave shares generously to early employees. Tried to allow the more general public to buy from IPO, by using a bidding scheme, rather than focusing on the big bankers as was usual.
The introduction mentions that Google is very interested in molecular biology and mining genetics data, much like Ciro Santilli! Can't find external references however...
Two of the most compelling areas that Google and its founders are quietly working on are the promising fields of molecular biology and genetics. Millions of genes in combination with massive amounts of biological and scientific data are an excellent match for the Google search engine, the tremendous database the company has in place, and its immense computing power. Already, Google has downloaded a map of the human genome and is working closely with biologist Dr. Craig Venter and other leaders in genetics on scientific projects that may lead to important breakthroughs in science, medicine, and health. In other words, we may be heading toward a time when people can google their own genes.
The book gives good highlight as to why Google became big: search was just an incredibly computationally intensive task. From very early days, Largey were already making up their own somewhat custom compute systems from very early days, which naturally led into Google custom hardware later on. Google just managed to pull ahead on the reinvest revenue into hardware loop, and no one ever caught them back. This feels more the case than e.g. with Amazon, which notoriously had to buy off dozens of competitors to clear the way.
