Google LLC is an American international innovation firm that focuses on Internet-related product and services, that include online advertising and marketing innovations, a search engine, cloud computing, software, as well as equipment. It is taken into consideration one of the Big Four technology business together with Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft.

Google was founded in September 1998 by Larry Page and also Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University in California. With each other they own about 14 percent of its shares and also control 56 percent of the investor ballot power via supervoting supply. They integrated Google as a California privately held company on September 4, 1998, in California. Google was then reincorporated in Delaware on October 22, 2002. An initial public offering (IPO) took place on August 19, 2004, and Google transferred to its headquarters in Mountain View, California, nicknamed the Googleplex. In August 2015, Google announced strategies to reorganize its various passions as an empire called Alphabet Inc. Google is Alphabet's leading subsidiary as well as will certainly continue to be the umbrella company for Alphabet's Internet interests. Sundar Pichai was appointed CEO of Google, replacing Larry Page who became the CEO of Alphabet.

The company's fast development given that unification has actually triggered a chain of products, acquisitions, as well as partnerships past Google's core internet search engine (Google Search). It offers services made for job and efficiency (Google Docs, Google Sheets, and also Google Slides), e-mail (Gmail), organizing as well as time monitoring (Google Schedule), cloud storage space (Google Drive), immediate messaging and also video conversation (Duo, Hangouts, Meet), language translation (Google Translate), mapping and also navigating (Google Maps, Waze, Google Earth, Street View), video clip sharing (YouTube), note-taking (Google Maintain), and picture organizing as well as editing (Google Photos). The company leads the development of the Android mobile os, the Google Chrome web browser, and Chrome OS, a lightweight operating system based on the Chrome internet browser. Google has relocated increasingly right into hardware; from 2010 to 2015, it partnered with significant electronic devices makers in the manufacturing of its Nexus devices, and also it released numerous equipment items in October 2016, including the Google Pixel smartphone, Google House smart audio speaker, Google Wi-fi harmonize wireless router, and also Google Vision virtual reality headset. Google has actually also try out coming to be an Internet service provider (Google Fiber, Google Fi, and also Google Terminal). Google.com is one of the most checked out website in the world.Several various other Google services additionally figure in the leading 100 most checked out websites, including YouTube and Blog writer. Google was the most useful brand name on the planet in 2017 (surpassed by Amazon), yet has actually gotten substantial criticism including problems such as personal privacy concerns, tax obligation evasion, antitrust, censorship, as well as search neutrality.