Happy Birthday Google

The search giant Google celebrates it’s eighth birthday today. Launched in September 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin with an initial $1 million investment made by family, friends, and acquaintances plus a cheque for $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems.

Here is a flashback to how Google looked in December 1998.

In such a short time they have come a long way. Both the company and it’s founders.

After the company’s IPO in August 2004, it was reported that Sergey and Larry have accepted a base salary of $1.00. They have declined recent offers of bonuses and increases in compensation by Google’s board of directors. In a 2006 report of the world’s richest people, Forbes reported that Sergey Brin was #26 with a net worth of $12.9 billion, and Larry Page was #27 with a net worth of $12.8 billion.

Google Maps, Google Earth, GMail, Google Reader, Google Talk, Google Desktop, Google Page Creator and on the list goes of applications and tools the company have released for free use though they are still know best for searching.

“Just google it”