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I remember using Google when it was hosted at Stanford.edu, luckily internet archive captures this moment: https://web.archive.org/web/19981111183552/http://go

I remember using Google when it was hosted at Stanford.edu, luckily internet archive captures this moment: https://web.archive.org/web/19981111183552/http://google.stanford.edu:80/ https://web.archive.org/web/19981111183552/http://google.sta... Notice that the branding is "Google!" with an exclamation point, just like that other Stanford tool for finding stuff online, Yahoo!. The "About Google!" page is pretty interesting, includes links to Sergey and Larry's grad school personal home pages: https://web.archive.org/web/19990204033714/http://google.stanford.edu:80/about.html https://web.archive.org/web/19990204033714/http://google.sta... It also includes, under "credits," this: Research Funding: NSF, NASA, DARPA and Interval Research So remember, Google may be touted as a quintessential Silicon Valley startup, but, like virtually all of them, it owes a lot to the work of the federal government. (And what is Interval Research, you might ask? Wikipedia says it was a Palo Alto tech incubator co-founded by Paul Allen — previously the co-founder of Microsoft. Lol.)

justinmk 8y ago
> So remember, Google may be touted as a quintessential Silicon Valley startup, but, like virtually all of them, it owes a lot to the work of the federal government. Oh, right. The thing that sucks trillions of dollars out of the economy and then claims credit for anything it touched.
- solarkraft 8y ago
  The thing that ... supported all that innovation and works hard (though it's currently not doing that great) at keeping the economy in check.
  - justinmk 8y ago
    "Supporting innovation" is a low bar. It's easy to do that with lots of money, by allocating a small fraction to investment and wasting the rest. My point is that the cost isn't justified. Your point is "something happened, therefore it's worth the cost".
    - solarkraft 8y ago
      I didn't even advocate for the government writing research grants (though I do think it's a good idea). I tried (perhaps badly) to point out that "The thing that sucks trillions of dollars out of the economy" is a terribly silly characterization for the federal government.
- kevinh 8y ago
  The federal government runs on a deficit so it puts more money into the economy than it takes out.
  - justinmk 8y ago
    I'm not sure what your point is. That deficit must be paid by value-creators, not the government--the same value-creators that were taxed in the first place.
- sp527 8y ago
  You're so horribly wrong that you could convincingly make exactly the opposite argument, that the government (and by extension US taxpayers) are owed royalties.
  - justinmk 8y ago
    If that were the case then there would be no need to raise taxes compulsorily, would there?
    - sp527 8y ago
      So you think taxes only fund government R&D? And that all taxpaying entities derive outsized profits by relying on government R&D?
eegilbert 8y ago
Page and Brin were both initially funded by the National Science Foundation to do the algorithmic work that led to Google [1]. Page was supported by an NSF grant from the 1994 Digital Library Initiative program; Brin was at Stanford on an NSF Graduate Student Fellowship. [1] https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100660 https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100660
magila 8y ago
I wonder, how much research is there these days that doesn't get at least some money from a government agency? As a casual observer it certainly seems like the government throws so much money around that they have long since crowded out most of the private funding. Having funds going to pretty much every research lab in the country conveniently lets the feds take credit for pretty much everything with no way to refute it because no one knows what the research community would be like today without federal money.
carapace 8y ago
FWIW, Interval Research had William Bricken as a consultant from 1993-2000 on Losp Deductive Engine, logic circuit design based on Laws of Form. http://iconicmath.com/logic/semiconductors/ http://iconicmath.com/logic/semiconductors/ http://iconicmath.com/mypdfs/15p-bricken.120903.pdf http://iconicmath.com/mypdfs/15p-bricken.120903.pdf Bricken is the fellow who discovered the "Bricken Basis": A((B)) = AB A() = () A(AB) = A(B) This is the most parsimonious symbolic representation of Logic (yet found.) LoF with the Bricken basis is a more efficient notation than the standard ones. For example, it permits writing a SAT solver that does not require its inputs to be in normal form.[1] A proof in LoF notation is typically one or two orders of magnitude shorter than one using standard notation. I'm pretty sure this stuff is the future of digital hardware. [1] http://joypy.osdn.io/notebooks/Correcet_Programming.html http://joypy.osdn.io/notebooks/Correcet_Programming.html
dev_dull 8y ago
I’m surprised the federal government isn’t entitled to some form of ownership in the company if it IPOs.
- sjg007 8y ago
  They get taxes typically.
- jhall1468 8y ago
  They were research grants. The idea behind a grant is that you don't get anything aside from the "knowledge" gleaned from the research.
sephware 8y ago
For years I remember their about page offering an explanation of how they scrape the web and score links, and a phrase something like “this might sound a bit recursive; that’s because it is!” But I haven’t been able to find it on archive.org or this site.

justinmk 8y ago

> So remember, Google may be touted as a quintessential Silicon Valley startup, but, like virtually all of them, it owes a lot to the work of the federal government. Oh, right. The thing that sucks trillions of dollars out of the economy and then claims credit for anything it touched.

solarkraft 8y ago
The thing that ... supported all that innovation and works hard (though it's currently not doing that great) at keeping the economy in check.
- justinmk 8y ago
  "Supporting innovation" is a low bar. It's easy to do that with lots of money, by allocating a small fraction to investment and wasting the rest. My point is that the cost isn't justified. Your point is "something happened, therefore it's worth the cost".
  - solarkraft 8y ago
    I didn't even advocate for the government writing research grants (though I do think it's a good idea). I tried (perhaps badly) to point out that "The thing that sucks trillions of dollars out of the economy" is a terribly silly characterization for the federal government.
kevinh 8y ago
The federal government runs on a deficit so it puts more money into the economy than it takes out.
- justinmk 8y ago
  I'm not sure what your point is. That deficit must be paid by value-creators, not the government--the same value-creators that were taxed in the first place.
sp527 8y ago
You're so horribly wrong that you could convincingly make exactly the opposite argument, that the government (and by extension US taxpayers) are owed royalties.
- justinmk 8y ago
  If that were the case then there would be no need to raise taxes compulsorily, would there?
  - sp527 8y ago
    So you think taxes only fund government R&D? And that all taxpaying entities derive outsized profits by relying on government R&D?

eegilbert 8y ago

Page and Brin were both initially funded by the National Science Foundation to do the algorithmic work that led to Google [1]. Page was supported by an NSF grant from the 1994 Digital Library Initiative program; Brin was at Stanford on an NSF Graduate Student Fellowship. [1] https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100660 https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100660

magila 8y ago

I wonder, how much research is there these days that doesn't get at least some money from a government agency? As a casual observer it certainly seems like the government throws so much money around that they have long since crowded out most of the private funding. Having funds going to pretty much every research lab in the country conveniently lets the feds take credit for pretty much everything with no way to refute it because no one knows what the research community would be like today without federal money.

carapace 8y ago

FWIW, Interval Research had William Bricken as a consultant from 1993-2000 on Losp Deductive Engine, logic circuit design based on Laws of Form. http://iconicmath.com/logic/semiconductors/ http://iconicmath.com/logic/semiconductors/ http://iconicmath.com/mypdfs/15p-bricken.120903.pdf http://iconicmath.com/mypdfs/15p-bricken.120903.pdf Bricken is the fellow who discovered the "Bricken Basis": A((B)) = AB A() = () A(AB) = A(B) This is the most parsimonious symbolic representation of Logic (yet found.) LoF with the Bricken basis is a more efficient notation than the standard ones. For example, it permits writing a SAT solver that does not require its inputs to be in normal form.[1] A proof in LoF notation is typically one or two orders of magnitude shorter than one using standard notation. I'm pretty sure this stuff is the future of digital hardware. [1] http://joypy.osdn.io/notebooks/Correcet_Programming.html http://joypy.osdn.io/notebooks/Correcet_Programming.html

dev_dull 8y ago

I’m surprised the federal government isn’t entitled to some form of ownership in the company if it IPOs.

sjg007 8y ago
They get taxes typically.
jhall1468 8y ago
They were research grants. The idea behind a grant is that you don't get anything aside from the "knowledge" gleaned from the research.

sephware 8y ago

For years I remember their about page offering an explanation of how they scrape the web and score links, and a phrase something like “this might sound a bit recursive; that’s because it is!” But I haven’t been able to find it on archive.org or this site.