Sept 26 (Reuters) - More than 25 years ago, two students
at Stanford University brainstormed in their dormitory and came
up with an idea - to create an internet search engine that would
organize web pages and also rank them. 
    Initially called BackRub, the startup grew into one of the
world's most valuable and influential companies, Google.
    Google's products, including Gmail and search, are now used
by billions and its co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin,
rank among the richest people in the world.
    Here are some milestones in the history of the tech giant,
whose parent is now known as Alphabet:
    
 YEAR        EVENT
 1995-1996   Page and Brin meet at Stanford University and
             create a search engine named BackRub.
 1998        The startup, now renamed Google, gets $100,000
             in funding from Sun Microsystems co-founder
             Andy Bechtolsheim.
 1999        Google announces $25 million in funding from
             Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins in its
             very first press release, and officially
             announces the term "Googlers" to the world.
 June 2000   Google becomes the default search engine
             provider for Yahoo, one of the most popular
             websites at the time. 
 October     Launches AdWords, the online advertising
 2000        platform that would become core to Google's
             business.
 2001        Eric Schmidt is named Google's chief executive
             officer and chairman of the board of
             directors.
 April 2004  Google announces it is testing the release of
             Gmail, with up to 1GB of storage capacity. 
 August      Launches initial public offering of roughly
 2004        19.6 million shares, at an opening price of
             $85 per share.
 February    Launches Google Maps for desktop.
 2005        
 August      Acquires mobile startup Android.
 2005        
             Launches Google Talk instant messaging
             service.        
 2006        Buys online video service YouTube for $1.65
             billion.
 April 2007  Announces acquisition of web ad supplier
             DoubleClick for $3.1 billion.
 May 2007    Introduces universal search that lets users
             access search results across all content
             types, like images, videos and news, at once.
 September   Debuts first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1 or
 2008        HTC Dream.
             
             Launches Google Chrome web browser.    
 January     Launches smartphone, Nexus One, co-developed
 2010        with HTC.
 March 2010  Stops censoring search results in China,
             leading to its banning in the country.
 October     Google tests out its first self-driving
 2010        vehicles with a small fleet of Toyota Prius
             cars in California.
 June 2011   Launches Google+ social networking service,
             which was shut down in 2018.
 August      Announces acquisition of Motorola Mobility,
 2011        which includes Motorola's cellphone and TV
             set-top box businesses, for $12.5 billion. 
 2012        Launches Google Glass.
 2013        Announces acquisition of Israeli mapping
             startup Waze for about $1 billion. 
 2014        Announces in January that it will acquire AI
             firm DeepMind.
             
             In the same month, announces a $3.2 billion
             deal to buy smart thermostat and smoke alarm
             maker Nest Labs.
 2015        Announces plans to create a new publicly
             listed company, Alphabet, which will house
             Google and other units, including YouTube and
             research and venture capital businesses.
             Sundar Pichai named CEO of Google.
 October     Launches the first Pixel smartphone. 
 2016        
 November    Launches Google Home smart speaker.
 2016        
 June 2017   The European Commission fines Google 2.42
             billion euros for violating the neutrality of
             its search.
 February    Google reports full-year sales of over $100
 2018        billion a year for the first time.
 July 2018   The European Commission fines Google 4.34
             billion euros for anti-competitive practices
             with respect to its Android operating system.
 March 2019  The European Commission imposes a 1.49 billion
             euros fine for anti-competitive practices with
             respect to the company's online advertising
             business.
 June 2019   Google announces acquisition of analytics
             startup Looker for $2.6 billion.
 November    Announces acquisition of Fitbit for $2.1
 2019        billion.
 December    Co-founders Page and Brin announce they are
 2019        stepping down as CEO and president,
             respectively; Pichai becomes CEO of Alphabet.
 2020        Alphabet hits $1 trillion in market
             capitalization.
 January     The company cuts 12,000 jobs, or 6% of its
 2023        workforce.
 February    Google announces Bard, a generative AI-powered
 2023        chatbot that can produce text content and
             fetch information off the internet. However, a
             factual error in the AI tool's demo tanks
             Alphabet shares, erasing $100 billion from the
             company's market capitalization. 
             
             Susan Wojcicki, one of Google's first
             employees, steps down as YouTube CEO; Neal
             Mohan replaces her. 
 March 2023  Begins rolling out Bard to some users.
 
 (Reporting by Chavi Mehta, Arsheeya Bajwa, Yuvraj Malik,
Samrhitha Arunasalam and Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by
Pooja Desai)