Google went public 10 years ago today.
Google $GOOGL went public 10 years ago today.
And it was obvious even then that Google—already the world’s top search engine—was an ambitious, powerful company. “This is not a publicity stunt,” said Peter Thiel, PayPal $PYPL co-founder—and later, an early Facebook $META investor, in a CNN Money article.
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But it’s also impressive just how much Google has grown since then—both in its business metrics and its influence over the world. The company will likely cross the 50,000-employee mark this quarter. Google is investing in projects ranging from self-driving cars to artificial intelligence.
Here are five charts that do a pretty good job summarizing Google’s last 10 years as a public company.
Google’s revenue has grown to $16 billion last quarter—including $4 billion in operating income—from $800 million the quarter it went public. Google still generates 90% of its sales from advertising—mostly on its owned-and-operated sites, including its search engine, Gmail, and YouTube.
Google’s search engine—its original product—still dominates. When Google went public, it was almost neck-and-neck with Yahoo in search market share, according to comScore. Google has since stabilized at just below 70% share in the US. (The share is higher in most other countries.) Almost no rival companies are chasing.
Google’s second-most important product—today, at least—is Android, the world’s most popular smartphone platform. Google showed up “late” to the smartphone game in 2008—offering Android as a free rival to handset makers, who had just been stunned by Apple $AAPL’s iPhone, and could no longer count on Microsoft $MSFT Windows or Symbian as competitive platforms. But Android has shown unprecedented growth, and could pass 1 billion unit sales this year.
As Google has prospered, it has invested heavily in its workforce. Besides a flat period during the recent recession, Google has been on a permanent hiring spree. It has added more than 8,000 employees over the past year—excluding Motorola—and is on pace to pass 50,000 employees this quarter. Googlers are working on a wide variety of projects, from Google search and YouTube to self-driving cars and Google Glass.
Google investors have made out huge, too—shares are up more than 1000% from where they debuted 10 years ago. The broader market—reflected by the S&P 500—is up roughly 100% during that period. (Though Apple—Google’s close ally-turned-archrival—would have been an even better investment.)
