Internet search leader Google Inc. has added a landmark to its rapidly expanding empire.
Google has bought the piece of real estate where the Silicon Valley home co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin kick-started the Internet giant less than a decade ago — a garage in a quite suburban neighborhood in Menlo Park, Calif. as they set out to change the world.
The Mountain View-based company bought the 1,900-square-foot home in nearby Menlo Park from one of its own employees, Susan Wojcicki, who had agreed to lease her garage for $1,700 per month because she wanted some help paying the mortgage.
Today, search giant Google occupies a state-of-the art complex at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, Calif.
Fast forward eight years. Google is vying for Web domination and its former landlord — Susan Wojcicki, now Google’s vice president of product management, did not work for the company at that time and only knew the Stanford University graduate students because one of her friends had dated Brin. “Wojciciki is currently responsible for AdSense, Google Book Search, Google Video and the syndication of Google products to partners.”
Garages, Dorm Rooms and Kitchen Tables
During Google’s five-month history there, the garage became like a second home for Page and Brin.
Page and Brin have not forgotten their humble beginnings. They recently purchased the garage in Menlo Park, Calif., where it all began — and the house that goes with it — to preserve what they consider to be living history.
The entrepreneurs, then just 25, seemed to be always working on their search engine or soaking in the hot tub that still sits on the property. They also had a penchant for raiding Wojcicki’s refrigerator – a habit that may have inspired Google to provide a smorgasbord of free food to the 8,000 employees on its payroll.
Indeed, it is an interesting rags-to-riches story — and one that is common to most Silicon Valley ventures. “At some point, nearly every company in Silicon Valley either started in a garage, or in a living room, or at a kitchen table,” Dag Spicer, senior curator of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., told TechNewsWorld. “Here, the barriers to entry are so low to forming a company, you can set one up in 24 hours — all you need is an idea.”
Dell and Napster both were launched from a dorm room, he noted. Apple was born in a garage and, perhaps most famously of all, Hewlett-Packard was launched some 75 years ago from a small house in Palo Alto.
The company’s astounding growth has imbued its birthplace with the same kind of mystique attached to other hallowed Silicon Valley spots like the Palo Alto garage where Hewlett-Packard Co. started in 1938 and the Los Altos garage where Steve Jobs and his partner Steve Wozniak first began to build Apple computers in the 1970s.
It is interesting that so many successful high-tech companies started out like that, Joe Wilson, senior analyst for JupiterResearch, agreed. “I guess only time will tell if this was a truly important development or just another milestone in the Internet’s evolution,” he told TechNewsWorld.
Dwindling Star
Although the Google garage is not considered a historic site quite yet, it already has turned into a tourist attraction.
The busloads of people that show up to take pictures of the house and garage have become such an annoyance that Google asked The Associated Press not to publish the property’s address, although it can easily be found on the Internet using the company’s search engine.
From this vantage point, it is impossible to imagine Google as anything but the reigning kingfish of the Internet — until, that is, one considers all the companies that at one time were thought to be similarly situated. Netscape comes to mind, as does AOL. In the CRM space, Siebel was once the market leader — now it is just a division of Oracle.
Then there is HP. While still a major player, the company has suffered a significant blow to its reputation over the last month. In September 2004, HP announced it would preserve in its original state the house, shed and garage at 367 Addison Avenue in Palo Alto where the founders launched the company in 1939.
HP paid $1.7 million (euro1.34 million) for 12-by-18-foot (3.6 by 5.4-meter) garage that co-founder William Hewlett first rented for $45 per month.
The development price tag for that project raised a few eyebrows, Spicer recalled. In general, though, he thinks such initiatives show a certain level of maturity on the part of companies, as well as an ability to take the long view — qualities not always on display at Silicon Valley. “It means they are thinking about their legacy and want to protect it,” he said.
Google declined to reveal how much it paid for its original home, but similar houses in the same neighborhood have been selling in the $1.1 million (euro870,000) to $1.3 million (euro1.03 million) range. That is a small fraction of the $319 million (euro252 million) that Google paid earlier this year for its current 1-million-square-foot (100,00 square-meter) headquarters located six miles (9.7 kilometers) to the south.
When Page and Brin first moved in the garage, Google had just been incorporated with a bankroll of $1 million raised from a handful of investors. Today, Google has about $10 billion (euro7.9 billion) in cash and a market value of $125 billion (euro98.7 billion).
Google may use the home as a guest house, but nothing definitive has been worked out. “We plan to preserve the property as a part of our living legacy,” said Google spokesman Jon Murchinson.