Google Celebrates 28th Birthday with Nostalgic Doodle and Interactive Quiz
Google celebrated its 28th birthday on September 27, 2026, with a nostalgic Doodle that revived its original 1998 logo. The interactive history quiz accompanying the Doodle walked users through nearly three decades of the tech giant's evolution.
The story of Google began at Stanford University in 1995 when Larry Page and Sergey Brin collaborated on a search engine prototype from their dorm rooms. They initially called it BackRub, but as the project grew, they needed more storage and computing power, so they moved operations to a garage in Menlo Park, California.
Susan Wojcicki rented the garage to Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who later became Google's 16th employee. She eventually served as CEO of YouTube. In August 1998, Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote a $100,000 cheque to Larry Page and Sergey Brin, marking the birth of Google Inc.
The company was formally incorporated on September 4, 1998. However, Google chooses to celebrate its birthday on September 27, a choice for which there is no definitive official explanation.