Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google in 1996 while developing a search engine called BackRub at Stanford University that analyzed relationships between websites and search terms. Google gained popularity through word-of-mouth and funding, becoming a public company in 2004. It grew from one California office in 1999 to multiple offices by 2003, making money through pay-per-click ads, and expanded through acquiring companies like YouTube and partnerships with organizations like NASA and AOL.