Google buys its founding garage

Last Updated: Monday, 2 October 2006, 14:21 GMT 15:21 UK
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Google buys its founding garage
The garage where Google was founded
Google was founded in the garage of this home in 1998
Internet giant Google has bought a landmark in its history - the suburban home where it was founded in 1998.

Google has paid an undisclosed fee for the property in Menlo Park, California, where Larry Page and Sergey Brin started the business from a garage.

At the time Google has $1m (£535,000) in funds, compared with £10bn in cash reserves today and a total market value of $125bn.

Google bought the property from one of its employees, Susan Wojcicki.

Monthly rent

Google founders Sergey Brin, left, and Larry Page
Sergey Brin and Larry Page founded Google in 1998

Ms Wojcicki did not work for Google in 1998, and only knew the then 25-year-old Stanford University students because one of her friends had dated Mr Brin.

She agreed to rent them her garage for $1,700 a month, where they stayed for five months.

Ms Wojcicki is now Google's vice president of product management, and works at the firm's headquarters in the nearby town of Mountain View.

Google has declined to say how much it paid for the Menlo Park home, but similar detached properties in the neighbourhood sell for between $1.1m and $1.3m.

In 2004, Hewlett-Packard - which started out as a manufacturer of test equipment - paid $1.7m for the garage where it was founded in the Californian town of Palo Alto in 1938.