Learn This Year’S Founders' Letter
Every year, Larry as well as Sergey write a Founders' Letter to our stockholders updating them with some of our recent highlights as well as sharing our vision for the future. This year, they decided to seek something new. - Ed.
In August, I announced Alphabet as well as our novel construction as well as shared my thoughts on how nosotros were thinking virtually the hereafter of our business. (It is reprinted here inwards instance y'all missed it, every bit it seems to apply exactly every bit much today.) I’m truly pleased with how Alphabet is going. I am also rattling pleased with Sundar’s performance every bit our novel Google CEO. Since the bulk of our large bets are inwards Google, I wanted to give him most of the bully-pulpit hither to reverberate on Google’s accomplishments as well as part his vision. In the future, y'all should hold off that Sundar, Sergey as well as I volition purpose this infinite to give y'all a expert personal overview of where nosotros are as well as where nosotros are going.
- Larry Page, CEO, Alphabet
When Larry as well as Sergey founded Google inwards 1998, at that spot were virtually 300 1000000 people online. By as well as large, they were sitting inwards a chair, logging on to a desktop machine, typing searches on a large keyboard connected to a big, bulky monitor. Today, that issue is around three billion people, many of them searching for information on tiny devices they comport with them wherever they go.
In many ways, the founding mission of Google dorsum inwards ’98—“to organize the world’s information as well as kicking the bucket far universally accessible as well as useful”—is fifty-fifty truer as well as to a greater extent than of import to tackle today, inwards a Blue Planet where people expression to their devices to assist organize their day, acquire them from ane house to another, as well as hold inwards touch. The cellular telephone truly has kicking the bucket the remote command for our daily lives, as well as we’re communicating, consuming, educating, as well as entertaining ourselves, on our phones, inwards ways unimaginable exactly a few years ago.
Knowledge for everyone: search as well as assistance
As nosotros said when nosotros announced Alphabet, “the novel construction volition allow us to hold tremendous focus on the extraordinary opportunities nosotros receive got within of Google.” Those opportunities alive within our mission, as well as today nosotros are virtually ane thing to a higher house all else: making information as well as knowledge available for everyone.
This of class brings us to Search—the rattling total of this company. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel to accept Search for granted later on as well as thence many years, but it’s amazing to intend exactly how far it has come upwards as well as all the same has to go. I all the same holler upwards the days when 10 bare bluish links on a desktop page helped y'all navigate to dissimilar parts of the Internet. Contrast that to today, where the bulk of our searches come upwards from mobile, as well as an increasing issue of them via voice. These queries acquire harder as well as harder with each passing year—people desire to a greater extent than local, to a greater extent than context-specific information, as well as they desire it at their fingertips. So we’ve made it possible for y'all to search for [Leonardo DiCaprio movies] or [Zika virus] as well as acquire a rich panel of facts as well as visuals. You tin also acquire answers via Google Now—like the conditions inwards your upcoming opor-garai spot, or when y'all should go out for the airport—without y'all fifty-fifty needing to inquire the question.
Helping y'all notice information that gets y'all through your twenty-four hours extends good beyond the classic search query. Think, for example, of the issue of photos y'all as well as your household unit of measurement receive got taken throughout your life, all of your memories. Collectively, people volition accept 1 trillion photos this yr with their devices. So nosotros launched Google Photos to kicking the bucket far easier for people to organize their photos as well as videos, hold them safe, as well as hold upwards able to notice them when they desire to, on whatever device they are using. Photos launched less than a yr agone as well as already has to a greater extent than than 100 1000000 monthly active users. Or accept Google Maps. When y'all inquire us virtually a location, y'all don’t exactly desire to know how to acquire from indicate Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 to indicate B. Depending on the context, y'all may desire to know what fourth dimension is best to avoid the crowds, whether the shop you’re looking for is opened upwards correct now, or what the best things to produce are inwards a finish you’re visiting for the firstly time.
But all of this is exactly a start. There is all the same much function to hold upwards done to brand Search as well as our Google services to a greater extent than helpful to y'all throughout your day. You should hold upwards able to motion seamlessly across Google services inwards a natural way, as well as acquire assistance that understands your context, situation, as well as needs—all piece respecting your privacy as well as protecting your data. The average nurture has dissimilar needs than the average college student. Similarly, a user wants dissimilar assist when inwards the motorcar versus the living room. Smart assistance should empathize all of these things as well as hold upwards helpful at the correct time, inwards the correct way.
The might of machine learning as well as artificial intelligence
Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 fundamental driver behind all of this function has been our long-term investment inwards machine learning as well as AI. It’s what allows y'all to purpose your vocalism to search for information, to interpret the spider web from ane linguistic communication to another, to filter the spam from your inbox, to search for “hugs” inwards your photos as well as truly delineate upwards pictures of people hugging ... to solve many of the problems nosotros encounter inwards daily life. It’s what has allowed us to create products that acquire ameliorate over time, making them increasingly useful as well as helpful.
We’ve been edifice the best AI squad as well as tools for years, as well as recent breakthroughs volition allow us
to produce fifty-fifty more. This past times March, DeepMind’s AlphaGo took on Lee Sedol, a legendary Go master, becoming the firstly programme to trounce a professional person at the most complex game mankind e'er devised. The implications for this victory are, literally, game changing—and the ultimate winner is humanity. This is some other of import measuring toward creating artificial intelligence that tin assist us inwards everything from accomplishing our daily tasks as well as travels, to eventually tackling fifty-fifty bigger challenges similar climate modify as well as cancer diagnosis.
More great content, inwards to a greater extent than places
In the early on days of the Internet, people thought of information primarily inwards terms of spider web pages. Our focus on our total mission has led us to many efforts over the years to improve discovery, creation, as well as monetization of content—from indexing images, video, as well as the news, to edifice platforms similar Google Play as well as YouTube. And with the migration to mobile, people are watching to a greater extent than videos, playing to a greater extent than games, listening to to a greater extent than music, reading to a greater extent than books, as well as using to a greater extent than apps than e'er before.
That’s why nosotros receive got worked difficult to brand YouTube as well as Google Play useful platforms for discovering as well as delivering great content from creators as well as developers to our users, when they desire it, on whatever covert is inwards forepart of them. Google Play reaches to a greater extent than than 1 billion Android users. And YouTube is the number-one finish for video—over 1 billion users per calendar month see the site—and ranks with the year’s most downloaded mobile apps. In fact, the amount of fourth dimension people pass watching videos on YouTube continues to grow rapidly—and to a greater extent than than one-half of this watchtime at nowadays happens on mobile. As nosotros expression to the future, nosotros aim to render to a greater extent than alternative to YouTube fans—more ways for them to engage with creators as well as each other, as well as to a greater extent than ways for them to acquire great content. We’ve started downward this journeying with specialized apps similar YouTube Kids, every bit good every bit through our YouTube Red subscription service, which allows fans to acquire all of YouTube without ads, a premium YouTube Music sense as well as exclusive access to novel original serial as well as movies from top YouTube creators similar PewDiePie as well as Lilly Singh.
We also hold to invest inwards the mobile web—which is a vital source of traffic for the vast bulk of websites. Over this past times year, Google has worked closely with publishers, developers, as well as others inwards the ecosystem to assist brand the mobile spider web a smoother, faster sense for users. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 expert illustration is the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project, which nosotros launched every bit an open-source inaugural inwards partnership with tidings publishers, to assist them create mobile-optimized content that loads straightaway everywhere. The other illustration is Progressive Web Apps (PWA), which combine the best of the spider web as well as the best of apps—allowing companies to create mobile sites that charge quickly, transportation force notifications, receive got abode covert icons, as well as much more. And finally, nosotros hold to invest inwards improving Chrome on mobile—in the 4 brusk years since launch, it has exactly passed 1 billion monthly active users on mobile.
Of course, great content requires investment. Whether you’re talking virtually Google’s spider web search, or a compelling tidings article y'all read inwards The New York Times or The Guardian, or watching a video on YouTube, advertising helps fund content for millions as well as millions of people. So nosotros function difficult to create great advertizing products that people notice useful—and that give revenue dorsum to creators as well as publishers.
Powerful computing platforms
Just a decade ago, computing was all the same synonymous with large computers that sat on our desks. Then, over exactly a few years, the keys to powerful computing—processors as well as sensors—became as well as thence small-scale as well as inexpensive that they allowed for the proliferation of supercomputers that friction match into our pockets: mobile phones. Android has helped drive this scale: it has to a greater extent than than 1.4 billion 30-day-active devices—and growing.
Today’s proliferation of “screens” goes good beyond phones, desktops, as well as tablets. Already, at that spot are exciting developments every bit screens extend to your car, similar Android Auto, or your wrist, similar Android Wear. Virtual reality is also showing incredible promise—Google Cardboard has introduced to a greater extent than than v 1000000 people to the incredible, immersive as well as educational possibilities of VR.
Looking to the future, the adjacent large measuring volition hold upwards for the rattling concept of the “device” to fade away. Over time, the estimator itself—whatever its shape factor—will hold upwards an intelligent assistant helping y'all through your day. We volition motion from mobile firstly to an AI firstly world.
Enterprise
Most of these computing experiences are rattling probable to hold upwards built inwards the cloud. The cloud is to a greater extent than secure, to a greater extent than cost effective, as well as it provides the might to easily accept payoff of the latest technology advances, hold upwards it to a greater extent than automated operations, machine learning, or to a greater extent than intelligent component productivity tools.
Google started inwards the cloud as well as has been investing inwards infrastructure, information management, analytics, as well as AI from the rattling beginning. We at nowadays receive got a wide as well as growing laid of venture offerings: Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Google Apps, Chromebooks, Android, paradigm recognition, spoken language translation, maps, machine learning for customers’ proprietary information sets, as well as more. Our customers similar Whirlpool, Land O’Lakes as well as Spotify are transforming their businesses past times using our venture productivity suite of Google Apps as well as Google Cloud Platform services.
As nosotros expression to our long-term investments inwards our productivity tools supported past times our machine learning as well as artificial intelligence efforts, nosotros regard huge opportunities to dramatically improve how people work. Your telephone should proactively convey upwards the correct documents, schedule as well as map your meetings, allow people know if y'all are late, advise responses to messages, handgrip your payments as well as expenses, etc.
Building for everyone
Whether it’s a developer using Google Cloud Platform to might their novel application, or a creator finding novel income as well as viewers via YouTube, nosotros believe inwards leveling the playing plain for everyone. The Internet is ane of the world’s most powerful equalizers, as well as nosotros regard it every bit our task to kicking the bucket far available to every bit many people every bit possible.
This belief has been a total Google regulation from the rattling start—remember that Google Search was inwards the hands of millions long earlier the thought for Google advertising was born. We function on advertising because it’s what allows us to brand our services free; Google Search industrial plant the same for anyone with an Internet connection, whether it is inwards a modern high-rise or a rural schoolhouse.
Making this possible is a lot to a greater extent than complicated than exactly translating a production or launching a local province domain. Poor infrastructure keeps billions of people around the Blue Planet locked out of all of the possibilities the spider web may offering them. That’s why nosotros kicking the bucket far possible for at that spot to hold upwards a $50 Android phone, or a $100 Chromebook. It’s why this yr nosotros launched Maps with turn-by-turn navigation that industrial plant fifty-fifty without an Internet connection, as well as made it possible for people to acquire faster-loading, streamlined Google Search if they are on a slower network. We desire to brand certain that no affair who y'all are or where y'all are or how advanced the device y'all are using ... Google industrial plant for you.
In all nosotros do, Google volition hold to strive to brand certain that remains true—to create technology for everyone. Farmers inwards Republic of Kenya purpose Google Search to hold upwards with crop prices as well as brand certain they tin brand a expert living. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 classroom inwards Wisconsin tin accept a plain trip to the Sistine Chapel ... exactly past times belongings a duo of Cardboard goggles. People everywhere tin purpose their voices to part novel perspectives, as well as connect with others, past times creating as well as watching videos on YouTube. Information tin hold upwards shared—knowledge tin flow—from anyone, to anywhere. In 17 years, it’s remarkable to me the grade to which the companionship has stayed truthful to our original vision for what Google should do, as well as what nosotros should become.
For us, technology is non virtually the devices or the products nosotros build. Those aren’t the end-goals. Technology is a democratizing force, empowering people through information. Google is an information company. It was when it was founded, as well as it is today. And it’s what people produce with that information that amazes as well as inspires me every day.