When was Google founded?

The story behind the answer

Google was founded on September 4, 1998, when Larry Page and Sergey Brin incorporated Google Inc. in California, famously working from Susan Wojcicki’s garage in Menlo Park. Earlier dates in the options don’t fit: the domain google.com was registered in 1997 (not the company’s founding), and 2000 marks later milestones like massive growth and the launch of key products. 1989 predates the web era entirely.

Context to remember it: Page and Brin began as Stanford grad students building a search engine called “Backrub,” which ranked pages by links. They renamed it “Google,” a play on “googol” (10^100), reflecting their aim to organize vast information. Memory hook: 9/4/98—think “searching from 9 to 4” during the dot-com boom of ’98.