Have you ever wondered why Google won the search wars? Kind of important when you think about it, not just as a technology based success story, but now with larger economic implications. Google started as a PhD research thesis by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1996. By 1998 they felt they could make a go of it and so incorporated (still just the two of them) on September 7, 1998. Right from the beginning the Google search website enjoyed much success.
In August, 2004 Google launched its IPO, and sold off 19 million shares at a starting price of $84. At the time the IPO would raise 1.67 billion US dollars and the stock represented a total market cap of around $23 billion.
Fast forward to today and you will find that Google, the publicly held corporation, is listed as the “largest American company by market capitalization not listed in the Dow Jones as of October 31, 2007″ยน. The parent company has over 16,000 employees and keeps massive search engine server farms at 25 locations across the globe.
And that initial share price of $84, the one that Wall Street scoffed at? Over the last year Google shares fluctuated between $437 and $747 and the current market cap is at $159 billion.
The company is a monster. So how did it happen?