Google

Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched Google Search, a venture born of their PhD research at Stanford University, in 1998; the search engine’s name was a misspelling of googol, which was meant to convey their desire to process and make available unfathomable quantities of information. The Oxford English Dictionary concluded that the word, used as a verb, was worth adding as an entry in 2006. The company restructured in 2015, and now Google is a subsidiary of the parent company Alphabet Inc. “We liked the name Alphabet,” Page explained, “because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity’s most important innovations, and is the core of how we index with Google search.” The company, which faces frequent antitrust lawsuits, includes the phrase “Don’t be evil” in its code of conduct; in 2015 it chose “Do the right thing” as its new motto.