Claim: Google was incorporated as a privately held company.

Google is an American multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products . These include online advertising technologies , search , cloud computing , software , and hardware . Google was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University , in California . Together , they own about 14 percent of its shares , and control 56 percent of the stockholder voting power through supervoting stock . They incorporated Google as a privately held company on September 4 , 1998 . An initial public offering -LRB- IPO -RRB- took place on August 19 , 2004 , and Google moved to its new headquarters in Mountain View , California , nicknamed the Googleplex . In August 2015 , Google announced plans to reorganize its various interests as a conglomerate called Alphabet Inc. . Google , Alphabet 's leading subsidiary , will continue to be the umbrella company for Alphabet 's Internet interests . Upon completion of the restructure , Sundar Pichai became CEO of Google , replacing Larry Page , who became CEO of Alphabet .   Rapid growth since incorporation has triggered a chain of products , acquisitions , and partnerships beyond Google 's core search engine -LRB- Google Search -RRB- . It offers services designed for work and productivity -LRB- Google Docs , Sheets and Slides -RRB- , email -LRB- Gmail/Inbox -RRB- , scheduling and time management -LRB- Google Calendar -RRB- , cloud storage -LRB- Google Drive -RRB- , social networking -LRB- Google + -RRB- , instant messaging and video chat -LRB- Google Allo/Duo/Hangouts -RRB- , language translation -LRB- Google Translate -RRB- , mapping and turn-by-turn navigation -LRB- Google Maps -RRB- , video sharing -LRB- YouTube -RRB- , notetaking -LRB- Google Keep -RRB- , and photo organizing and editing -LRB- Google Photos -RRB- . The company leads the development of the Android mobile operating system , the Google Chrome web browser , and Chrome OS , a lightweight operating system based on the Chrome browser . Google has moved increasingly into hardware ; from 2010 to 2015 , it partnered with major electronics manufacturers in the production of its Nexus devices , and in October 2016 , it released multiple hardware products -LRB- including the Google Pixel smartphone , Home smart speaker , Wifi mesh wireless router , and Daydream View virtual reality headset -RRB- . The new hardware chief , Rick Osterloh , stated : `` a lot of the innovation that we want to do now ends up requiring controlling the end-to-end user experience '' . Google has also experimented with becoming an Internet carrier . In February 2010 , it announced Google Fiber , a fiber-optic infrastructure that was installed in Kansas City ; in April 2015 , it launched Project Fi in the United States , combining Wi-Fi and cellular networks from different providers ; and in 2016 , it announced the Google Station initiative to make public Wi-Fi around the world , which had already been deployed in India .   Alexa , a company that monitors commercial web traffic , lists Google.com as the most visited website in the world . Several other Google services also figure in the top 100 most visited websites , including YouTube and Blogger . Google has been the second most valuable brand in the world for 4 consecutive years , but has received significant criticism involving issues such as privacy concerns , tax avoidance , antitrust , censorship , and search neutrality . Google 's mission statement , from the outset , was `` to organize the world 's information and make it universally accessible and useful '' , and its unofficial slogan was `` Do n't be evil '' . In October 2015 , the motto was replaced in the Alphabet corporate code of conduct by the phrase `` Do the right thing '' .