Google isn't the same little search engine you remember. It's now part of Alphabet, a new conglomerate started by Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. In honor of this coming-of-age, we're paying homage to Google's history with a few fun facts about the company:
On August 30, 1998, Brin and Page placed the Burning Man stick figure on Google's logo to let everyone know they'd be attending the notoriously raucous music festival. Eventually these doodles became a tradition used to celebrate different holidays and events. There have been more than 2,000 doodles over the years.
A Google employee's ball python escaped in the NYC office on April 1, 2007. Since it was April Fools' Day, many people thought it was a prank. Unfortunately, it wasn't. The python was eventually caught and returned to its owner.
Jobs called up Google's Vic Gundotra in 2008 to tell him that the second "o" in the Google logo wasn't the right shade of yellow.
"I've been looking at the Google logo on the iPhone and I'm not happy with the icon. The second O in Google doesn't have the right yellow gradient. It's just wrong and I'm going to have Greg fix it tomorrow. Is that okay with you?" Jobs told Gundotra, according to a post Gundotra published on Google+.
Gundotra said that was absolutely OK with him.
