Google has come a long way since its debut on the public markets 10 years ago.
Since its stock started trading on Aug. 19, 2004, the search giant with the “Don’t Be Evil” motto has morphed into a $396.3 billion company. That’s almost 15 times bigger than its $27 billion opening market value. Google’s (GOOG) current market cap also makes it the third most valuable U.S. company behind Apple (AAPL) and Exxon Mobil (XOM).
It’s not just popular sentiment that has boomed: Google has the stats to back up the hype. The technology giant’s revenue has grown over 1,640% since it went public, from $3.2 billion in 2004 to $55.52 billion last year. Over 90% of that income comes from advertising dollars.
Along with growing income, Google has brought on board almost 50,000 more employees since 2004. Today, the company has 52,069 workers compared with 3,021 when it went public.
Who are the biggest beneficiaries of Google’s amazing growth? Not surprisingly, it’s the founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Together they maintain about 14% of the company’s shares and 56% of the stockholder voting power, which helped them to achieve billionaire status from day one. At Google’s $85-a-share IPO price, Page and Brin were worth a total of $6.5 billion. Today, they are worth a combined $27.1 billion. (Page owns slightly more shares that Brin — about 352,000 more as of April.)