It began as a simple idea. Most genius is, in its simplicity, isn't it?

Measure the importance of a web page by the number of links to it, and then build a search engine

around that. In 1996, that's what Stanford grad students Larry Page and Sergei Brind did.

First, in their Stanford dorm rooms, and then proving that all cliches have a hefty measure

of truth to them, they moved their nascent company into a Silicon Valley garage. In 1998,

propped up by a $100,000 check from a tech investor, a ping-pong table, bright blue carpet,

and drab-tan computers as large as foundation stones, Page and Brind built Google.

From the start, while their idea was simple, their mission was massive. Quote to organize the

world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. End quote.

Well, Google may not have accomplished that yet in its entirety, but the company certainly has

changed the world. In 2004, six years after it was founded, Google held its initial public

offering and was already valued at $23 billion. Today, Google, now called Alphabet its parent

company, has a market cap nearing $1.7 trillion. In 2022, the company tallied $279 billion in revenue.

As of August 2023, so just a couple of months ago, more than 90 percent of all search queries

worldwide were done on Google. 90 percent of the questions all of humanity asks and the answers

that you seek online in a search engine are served to you via Google. I mean, Google is more than

a company, right? It's a verb now. It's part of what we do and how we think. I mean, who says,

did you bing that? Nah, everyone says go ahead and Google it.

This is on point. I'm Meg Nechakrabarty. We know that free and fair competition is essential to

economic freedom. And we know that in a competitive conduct threatens innovation,

weekends, workers' rights, and stifles free expression. When any company, including a big

technology company, violates the antitrust laws, our economy and our democracy suffer.

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