After Larry Page founded Alphabet, Steve Jobs told him he was doing too much
This article explores the history of Google's growth and the advice Steve Jobs gave Larry Page regarding the importance of corporate focus. It highlights how Alphabet has expanded into diverse sectors while maintaining its dominance in the tech industry.
Why it matters
Understanding the strategic evolution of major tech conglomerates provides insight into how modern business giants manage scale and innovation.
Even from Google’s inception, cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin considered the company’s potential for astronomical growth. Named after “ googol ,” the term for the numeral 1 with 100 zeros behind it, Google, then just a search engine founded in 1998, would become as large as the internet would allow.
The company has far exceeded the parameters of just the internet. Valued at about $1.9 trillion, Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, ranks No. 1 on Fortune ’s 2026 Most Innovative Companies list . Broken into four segments , Alphabet’s reach spans from services like Search and Youtube, to cloud computing, to Waymo, to private equity, to its DeepMind AI research
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in