Sure, everybody knows that Google was created by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin who became gazillionaires. But did you know that Googles first storage device was cobbled together with LEGO? Or that Googles first investor wrote a $100,000 check even before the company officially existed? Or that it has its own 「official」 Google dog?

Neatorama presents the Top 10 Neat Facts About Google:

1. Before Google, There Was BackRub

In 1996, graduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin worked on a research project to understand the link structure of the World Wide Web. Theyre particularly interested in determining the importance of a given web page based on its backlinks or how many other web pages link to it (which later became the concept behind Googles 「PageRank」 algorithm). The project was named BackRub (yes, a play on the word 「backlink」).

2. The Original Google Computer Storage

Larry and Sergey needed large amount of disk space to test their PageRank algo, but the largest hard disks available at the time were only 4 GB. So they assembled 10 of these drives together.

While he was an undergrad at Michigan University, Larry had built a programmable plotter out of LEGO, so its only natural that he used the colorful bricks to create Googles first computer storage!

3. Googles First Investor 

Sun Microsystem co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim knew a good thing when he saw it. After talking to Larry and Sergey about Google for 30 minutes, he whipped out his checkbook and wrote a check for $100,000, made out to 「Google, Inc.」 Problem was, Google, Inc. hasnt existed yet electric dc motor!

Oh, by the way, the Sun in Sun Microsystem stands for 「Stanford University Network.」

4. Google Garage 

Talk about getting lucky tenants. In 1998, Susan Wojcicki rented her garage to two Stanford students – you know who they are – for $1,700 a month to help out with the mortgage. That turned out to be a life-changing decision for Susan – it got her a key early job at Google which translated to a top executive position later on, introduced a future husband to her younger sister Anne, and created a mini cottage industry for the rest of her family Direct Subsidy School.

In 2006, Google bought the house which had become a tourist attraction (the busloads of people who show up to take pictures were so annoying that Google decided not to publish the address – though ironically, you can still Google Map it.)

5. Googles First Dog 

Despite the Internets obsession with cats, dogs rule Google. In 1999, a Leonberger breed named Yoshka came to work with Googles first VP of Engineering Urs H?lzle and became the companys 「first」 dog WFOE in China.

If you must know, Leonbergers are big dogs with lionesque mane that look really majestic. They are, however, useless as guard dogs because theyre much too kind and gentle.

6. Just How Many Servers Does Google Have?

Good question. Nobody outside the company knows, and Google aint talkin. The companys famously secretive when it comes to its data centers (Heck, no one even knows for sure how many data centers the company has!)

Recently, Google Fellow Jeff Dean gave a revealing talk on large-scale computing systems in which he discussed technical details of a new storage and computation system called Spanner, which is designed for up to 10 million servers. Skynet, anyone?