Happy 18th Birthday, Google
It’s that time in one’s life where most things you’ve always wanted to do as a kid becomes legal. You can legally drink*, drive*, have sex* and do so much more when you’re 18. You’re an adult, and the world is suddenly as free as it can get. For most people, this is the age they start thinking about their futures, try to stop goofing around and take on more responsibilities. Turning 18 is probably the only age threshold that holds so much value apart from turning 100.
Yesterday, you were still a kid, running around, playing stupid games, having your first heart-break, thinking life is all about this generation’s unacceptable genre of music, defying everyone, being continuously horny and mostly responsibility-free. But, today, when you have turned 18, suddenly, there’s this legal and psychological growing-up that happens where you’re allowed to do a lot more than yesterday. Your thoughts and opinions mean a cent more and yet, you continue doing the same silly shit, only now, as an adult.
Well, all of this, in a funny way, is true to humans. But, Google, a company today turned 18. What Google has achieved in this time is gigantic.
When we humans make our first spelling mistake at the age of two and a half years, Google started off as a misspelt Search Engine right in its infancy. From then on it has seen momentous growth. Google’s growth has been just as clumsy and goofy as any human’s, but it has also continuously become indispensable in everyone’s lives.
Just like many teens, even Google has a crisis regarding its origin. Although 27th September has been the birthday for the past 10 years, the celebrations were a day earlier in 2005 on 26th September, and in 2004, it was on 8th September. It gets even more messy by the fact that the domain was registered on 15th September, 1997 and Google became a company on 4th September, 1998.
“The exact date when we celebrate our birthday has moved around over the years, depending on when people feel like having cake.” — Someone, Somewhere
But, none of this matters as we’ll celebrate it on the day Google wants it to be celebrated. After all, it’s an adult now.
When we humans are excited about the legal transition we make into adulthood when we turn 18, Google has already done a great deal.
It has created the best Email service, has given automobiles vision and autonomy, has made one of the best web browsers, has developed the most widely used mobile OS, has given its employees 20% free time, owns the biggest catalogue of cat videos, has always helped us find porn in addition to doing so much more.
Most importantly, it understands our horribly-spelt and poorly-phrased requests and serves us with highly-relevant results. It sometimes even understands our drunken accents and helps us win the drunk-bet we are having with our friends.
For most of us who use the Interwebs, Google has always been a part of our lives and, probably will be for the rest of our lives. I can’t think of any other entity in my life that I can expect to last that long.
🍻 Here’s to Google hoping it keeps doing what it does and makes our lives better. Have a great 18th year, Google, and may you see far better years henceforth. Happy birthday. 🎁
*In some countries of the world.
I wrote this article as an acknowledgement of how important Google has become in our lives. I have always been discouraging about drawing parallels between unrelated entities. And yet, I compared humans’ 18th birthdays to Google’s. The only reason to have done this was to show the contrast of the time scale between a human’s life and a successful company’s lifespan and also, for a bit of fun.
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