Google, Inc. business check, 6 x 2.75, filled out and signed by Brin, "Sergey Brin," payable to King Star Computer, Inc. for $12,000, December 29, 1998, with the memo noting: "Deposit on Computers." Google's address is given as "555 Bryant #106, Palo Alto, CA 94301." In very good to fine condition, with overall creasing. Encapsulated and graded by PSA/DNA as "GEM MT 10."
Google, Inc. was officially incorporated on September 7, 1998, by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, as a way to bring their 'PageRank' algorithm—an improved method of ranking internet search results, developed in the course of their Stanford doctoral work—to the masses. This check, written just three months later, is therefore one of the earliest checks written after the founding of Google. Moreover, it represents one of the company's first big purchases—computers used as it began to scale, purchased from one of its most important early vendors.
King Star Computer, based in Santa Clara, would soon build Google's infamous 'corkboard' system—a modest (but effective) group of custom-built server racks which featured standard, off-the-shelf PC motherboards seated on raw corkboard for insulation. At the time the order was placed in the summer of 1999, the entirety of Google's search engine was running on just over a hundred servers. Google commissioned King Star Computer to build out a 21-rack setup of 20 shelves a piece, each shelf carrying four servers—for a grand total of 1,680. Google's eighth employee, network engineer Urs Hölzle, later reflected: 'At the time of the order, we had a grand total of 112 servers so 1680 was a huge step. But by the summer, these racks were running search for millions of users. In retrospect the design of the racks wasn’t optimized for reliability and serviceability, but given that we only had two weeks to design them, and not much money to spend, things worked out fine.'
Google began building custom billion-dollar data centers in 2006, and today spends upwards of $5B per quarter on its worldwide data center infrastructure. Documenting significant infrastructure investment during a period of rapid growth, this ultra-early Google check represents the birth of one of the world's most influential companies.
Accompanied by a letter of provenance from the consignor, in part: "In August of 1998, Andy Bechtolsheim wrote a check to Google for $100,000 becoming the initial investor in the company. It took a few weeks for the check to be cashed because Google was not yet an incorporated company. On September 7 1998, Google became an incorporated company and the first checking account with the name Google Inc was opened. The address used to open the account, 555 Bryant #106 Palo Alto CA is currently a UPS Store which Google used as a mailing address. The actual offices were in a garage in Menlo Park.
It appears that the first check number used to set up the account was number 2000 to give the appearance of an established account/company. The location of the previous checks is unknown. King Star Computer Inc would play a significant role in the creation and success for Google. They were the provider of the servers that powered the search results for the company for many years. This check, was written in the first few months of the companies creation for a deposit on the critical infrastructure needed to power the early search results…
I joined the company in April of 2002. I worked in the Finance department as the manager of Disbursements and Payroll. I was the first manager level hired in the Finance department. I came across these checks as we were moving from one location to another, as we did frequently. The checks were to be discarded to make room for other files. The company was growing very fast at the time. I kept them thinking it would be fun to have from a historical perspective."
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