10 Wild Google Facts You Don’t Know

Since its founding on September 4, 1998, Google has become one of the most influential companies on the planet. What began as a project for PhD students has now sealed its place in history books as one of the largest entities governing the modern tech world.

Since 1998, Google has dipped its hands in numerous online industries. It has taken the mobile development, map programming, video creation, cloud computing, and AI world by storm, and as of 2024, it’s one of the top 5 wealthiest companies in the world.

Beneath the glamor and power of Google lie secrets that would make anyone go: “Wow, that’s unbelievable.” Today, we will take you through 10 of those mind-blowing mysteries. So sit and relax as we learn 10 wild Google facts you never knew.

Over 2 Billion Lines of Code

Programming has become crucial for many industries heavily reliant on software services. It almost doesn’t surprise people when they learn a tech product uses multiple lines of code that stretch into the thousands and even millions. However, Google takes things to the stratosphere with its code line count.

As of 2024, Google had more than 2 billion lines of code across its services; this is the highest amount of code on the planet, as no company comes close. Let’s give you a moment to let that sink in. Yes, the company has 2000 million lines of code.

That’s not only incredible but scary. Imagine if there was a single error on line 1,234,456,679, and you didn’t know. That would be pure torture.

For better context, if all of Google’s codebase were on paper, it would take 36,000,000 pieces stretching out for about 3.54 kilometers (2.2 miles) to contain everything. Also, Microsoft’s OS has 50 million, while Facebook has about 62 million.

There Were Other Programmers

Whenever you check informational sources like Wikipedia about Google’s history, you discover the creation of the company credited to two people, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. However, the company had more people who initially worked on it in its earliest days.

Before it was known as Google, Larry and Sergey called their website indexer BackRub. They formulated the idea for the project but were considered lousy programmers, so they didn’t write the actual code for the software. That initial programmer was Scott Hassan. 

Scott worked as a research assistant when Larry and Sergey formulated the idea for their indexer. He wrote the primary code for the software but left before BackRub even became a company.

Other people critical to the company’s success were Urs Hölzle, who entered the scene in 1996 and created much of the foundation that made the program scalable, and Jeff Dean.

Google Is Also A Website

Due to its vast reach in the tech world, Google has become synonymous with the web, as many people believe without it, there would be no internet. However, Google is an indexer and a website. 

Yes, the search engine you use to look up other apps, videos, music, and software is a website that crawls through websites and adds them to an index.

Another shocking thing about Google is that though it contains an almost unimaginable catalog of indexed websites, it accounts for only 5% of the internet. The remaining 95% remains hidden in what we call the deep web.

YouTube And Its Crazy Storage

Steve Chen, Jawed Karem, and Chad Hurley, three former PayPal employees, founded YouTube, and Google acquired the company for $1.65 billion in October 2006. Since then, the company has blown through the sky to become the second most-visited website.

With over 14 billion videos, It’s safe to say that the servers at YouTube must be packing a serious punch. They are, and many studies and calculations suggest YouTube has at least one exabyte of storage. Yes, you heard that right, one exabyte. For those who have never heard such a sacrilegious word, an exabyte equals 1000 petabytes or 1 million terabytes and 1 billion gigabytes.

For more context, many scientists believe all words spoken by humans throughout history would be about 5 exabytes. That means YouTube, in less than 20 years, has saved up to one-fifth of the data all humans have spoken for thousands of years. Incredible, right?

Piper, The Insane Code Repository

You must have had questions about our first fact, like: How does Google store its lines of code? Well, we have an answer: Piper. Google uses its code repository, Piper, to store all 2 billion lines of its code.

The weirdest thing about it is everything belongs in a single repository managed in a centralized fashion. As of 2024, the company had over 25,000 developers committing changes to the code base.

Yikes, there must be a code marathon occurring at Google. Imagine arriving there on your first day of work and being instantly given a thousand lines to edit, compile, and submit. That would make a grown man cry.

Google’s Ad Empire

The term empire is used for massive nations and kingdoms that conquered humongous expanses of civilizations. But in the modern world, that word has earned a new meaning as it now describes institutions that have reached insane peaks no one ever thought possible.

One of the companies we can call an empire is Google, which has an insane ad revenue.

Google creates many products across many industries, but its ad business has proven to be the most successful. In 2023, it earned about 237 billion dollars from ads, making up most of its 305 billion revenue. With this, it’s safe to say its Ad Empire is on a different level. 

It Doesn’t Have Its Satellites

The prevalence of Google Maps has widely improved our lives. Imagine traveling through 5 deserts and 3 oceans when you could have just searched Maps and used a shortcut. Our parents suffered, didn’t they?

Most of us know a tool like Maps is impossible without a vast network of satellites snapping images above the Earth. However, what if we told you that none of those satellites belong to Google?

That’s right, even though it has a map services platform, Google doesn’t own any imagery satellite. Instead, it buys data from government and commercial satellite operators like NASA, Maxar Technologies, Airbus Defense and Space, and TerraMetrix.

A Long History of Failed Products

Though it’s one of the most successful companies on the planet, Google has a long history of creating products that suck. It is also notorious for canceling projects, with some beloved by users. 

Some products the company has swept under the rug of failures include Google Plus, Buzz, Nexus Q, Google Video, Google Wave, Stadia, Hangouts, and Inbox by Gmail. Some of these products were gaining popularity in their communities, and their discontinuation riled up criticism.

Yahoo Almost Bought It For Cheap

Before Google started in 1998, it rose in the tech world. Yahoo initiated a deal to purchase it for only a million dollars, and Larry Page and Serger Brin were eager to sell their startup. However, Yahoo stopped the purchase to keep users on its platform. 

Another deal began in 2002, but this time, Google was up for sale at $5 billion. Yahoo still rejected the offer. Decades later, the company is now worth more than 2 trillion dollars, while Verizon bought Yahoo for $4.48 billion in 2017, lower than the price Larry and Sergey asked for in 2002.

Daily Searches Exceeding the Number of Humans on Earth

As of 2024, there are about 8.1 billion humans on the planet. Though this number is staggering, Google has an impressive search engine. As of 2024, it processed 8.5 billion searches PER DAY! If that does not impress you, then maybe, just maybe, you’re from an alien planet.

Conclusion

We hope you enjoyed reading our 10 exciting Google facts. Don’t forget to leave us a comment and share. Also, check out our Apple Facts. You should try out our Facts Search Engine Today Too.