Particle Data Platform
Acquired

Google

6/30/20253 hr 40 min

We tell the story of the single greatest business ever created: Google search. From its origins as a Stanford research project called BackRub, Google became the front door to the internet. Today it’s an essential service for over half the world, and one that generates more profit than ANY other US company — more than Apple, Microsoft, or Berkshire Hathaway.But it wasn’t always so obvious. When Larry and Sergey began working on BackRub in 1996, search was a backwater industry in silicon valley. Existing search companies were eking out a living as vendors to the then-dominant “portals”...

Clips

Google's Secret Increasing Returns to Scale
Why Excite Rejected Google's Superior Search
Google's Aggressive Toolbar Distribution Tactics
Charles Schwab Funded Google's First Date
Google's $100M Company-Betting AOL Deal
Jeff Bezos Owned 25% of Google's Seed Round
Larry and Sergey Only Wanted Steve Jobs as CEO
Google Stole Power From Competitor's Data Center

Transcript preview

First 90 seconds

  1. Ben Gilbert· Host0:00

    All right, David. Last episode we are doing in our studios before Radio City.

  2. David Rosenthal· Host0:03

    Ooh, that's right.

  3. Ben Gilbert· Host0:05

    How do you feel?

  4. David Rosenthal· Host0:05

    Uh, we're about to go from like the stage of one... (laughs) (laughs) Very, very small audience of one to the very, very big stage.

  5. Ben Gilbert· Host0:13

    Where if we make a mistake, no one will notice.

  6. David Rosenthal· Host0:15

    Yeah.

  7. Ben Gilbert· Host0:16

    And we just re-record it, and it's like it never happened.

  8. David Rosenthal· Host0:17

    (laughs) We should try that at Radio City, just be like, "Ah, strike that. All right, let's take that again."

  9. Ben Gilbert· Host0:21

    Yeah. Hey, this is Authentically Acquired, you guys. This is how we do it. You're getting a look at the inside. Probably not, though. All right, let's do it.

  10. David Rosenthal· Host0:28

    Let's do it.

  11. Speaker 20:29

    Who got the truth? Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Who got the truth now? Hmm. Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Sit me down. Say it straight. Another story on the way. Who got the truth?

  12. Ben Gilbert· Host0:45

    Welcome to the summer 2025 season of Acquired, the podcast about great companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert.

  13. David Rosenthal· Host0:53

    I'm David Rosenthal.

  14. Ben Gilbert· Host0:54

    And we are your hosts. Artificial intelligence is the story of our time. It is definitively the next trillion-dollar technology wave after PCs, the internet, and mobile. And to understand AI, you have to understand the company most responsible for its technical foundation and the wave that came before it, Google. This episode begins our multi-part Google saga. Finally- Woo! ... as I'm sure many of you out there are saying right now, Google has been the front door to the entire internet for 25 years now, a quarter century. But it wasn't

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