When the price for Google shares reached $200 a pop a few months ago, I asked, "Who in their right mind would buy this?" The price has reached more than $300 today, and the answer to my question is: me and anyone else who loves pictures of dead presidents on green paper.
The Google search page seems plain, devoid of decorations and pop-ups that define today's Internet experience. The user can do a simple search, though a more observant user would look to the top-right corner and create a more personalized search page to match their interests.
This has not gone unnoticed in the industry - Google's growth may have led Yahoo to add blogs to its news section. If true, this could be a significant victory since earlier Yahoo CEO Terry Semel stated that Google "did not seem to have a plan."
Yesterday's fledgling company is not only charting new waters, but may even be discovering new lands. Industry analysts surmise that Google may try challenging Microsoft for the personal computer and word-processing markets.
In the past, Microsoft honchos Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer have ridiculed Google as a "one trick pony." But after an antitrust trial left its reputation more than slightly bruised, Microsoft must be wondering what to make of a Google with more than one trick.
Google's ability to take on the big guns gives the feeling that Goliath has at least acquiesced - if not bowed - to David yet again. The little guy must be celebrating, wherever he is.
Google's role in our life even extends to Google Talk (instant messaging) and Google Earth - software that lets you see a reasonably accurate view of your college professor's house and making it easier to launch an aerial attack should you get less than a B in the course. The company is also bidding to connect San Francisco to a free wireless Internet service. If successful, the next step could be a national Wi-Fi service.
Danny Sullivan, the editor of Search Engine Watch, said, "Google wants to be everywhere that people are."
An important lesson that comes from that of Google is that engineering works best when it is people-centric. American engineers can send people to the moon and can outgun the erstwhile Soviet Union. Or in today's go-go-go culture, engineers can make life simple, giving people what they want faster and without unnecessary complications.
At the end of the day, the biggest story behind Google could be the founders. Larry Page and Sergey Brin met as graduate students at Stanford. The duo put their studies on hold, and in 1998, Google was incorporated with funding from the industry, friends and financers.
The modest start featured answered 10,000 search requests per day. Two years later, the number swelled to 18 million. The rest is history, which you can find by searching on Google.
The Google success story spans from laboring in Stanford dorm rooms and scrounging for spare parts to one of the largest search engines and the creation of millionaires.
It is a tribute to human ingenuity, optimism and the conviction that life is meant to work out. Even if the system is set against you, dreams followed by that deep-seated desire to make it may come true.
This story is emblematic of humanity's finest instinct - not giving up, slaying the dragons of uncertainty and keeping the dream alive.
The story is not about beating Bill Gates but about opening windows and envisioning what tomorrow would look like. It's a story of two young men who, like most of us, must have complained about parking and fees, but got beyond the small stuff to extend the horizon and ended up loading their plates that much higher at life's sumptuous buffet.
Nishant Bhajaria is a computer science graduate student. Reach him at nishant.bhajaria@asu.edu.
