Company founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin first met as Stanford University graduate students in computer science in 1995.

In 1996, the two collaborated on a search engine called BackRub, named for its unique ability to analyze the 'back links' pointing to a given website. A year later, their unique approach to link analysis was earning BackRub a growing reputation among those who had seen it.

Larry and Sergey continued working to perfect their technology. Their friend and Yahoo founder David Filo encouraged them to start their own company. The new search engine - named Google - was launched on September 21, 1999.

Google is a play on the word googol, it refers to the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros. Google's use of the term reflects the company's mission to organize the seemingly infinite amount of information available on the web.

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