Google by the Numbers

Google is cool. Not only are they revolutionizing the web, they’re still just a bunch of geeks at heart. Check this out:

• Google is named after a Googol, which is a 1 followed by 100 zeros. They didn’t use the original spelling because someone made a mistake, which was fortuitous since googol.com was taken, but google.com was available.
• Google’s buildings are numbered 0, 1, e, pi, and phi; all of which have mathematical significance.
• Google’s first IPO raised $2,718,281,828, which is the product of “e” and $1 billion, where “e” is the base of the natural logarithm.
• For their second public offering Google will sell 14,159,265 shares, which is the first 8 digits after the decimal point in pi (3.14159265).

This is the sign of a group who doesn’t take themselves too seriously.

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About Me: My name is Rob Walling and I'm a software developer living and working in Boston, Massachusetts. I write about hiring, managing, and motivating software developers, in addition to random outbursts on improving development skills and software startups.

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