How did the idea for Google come up?

The founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, first met at Stanford University and didn’t like each other very much in the beginning. Larry was studying at the University of Michigan and visiting the Stanford University for the weekend. Sergey was one of the students that had to show Larry around. From the beginning they were strongly arguing all the time about all kinds of subjects. Despite all the differences between Larry and Sergey they had the same opinion about a new unique way to solve one of computing biggest challenges; retrieving relevant information from a massive amount of data.

In 1996 they started working together on a search engine that was able to ‘follow’ links and was able to analyze these ‘back links’ by using unique algorithms. They called there first application “BackRub”. Within no time, the new technology was ‘the buzz’ on the campus of the University.