Things I Didn't Know About Google (also: the worst VC decision ever)

False history.<p>The Applied Semantics software was not needed to "generate 99% of its revenues at IPO time". They owned the trademark "AdSense", but the actual software used by Google was written by Google. Also, the product known as AdSense (at that time) was just for content targetted ads, not the search ads which produce most of the profits, so his bit of trivia is actually double wrong.

That's like saying that not buying the winning lottery ticket was a bad decision. You did the best with the information you had at the time.<p>Drinking and driving is a bad decision. Putting all your eggs in one basket is a bad decision. Passing on a given investment opportunity is just everyday business for a VC.

<i>"it was about how the jews control Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc. The funny thing about this particular site is that it had Google Ads all over it."</i><p>I actually thought about this the other day in the context of how important Facebook was during revolutionary activity in Arab nations and the action Facebook took to protect people's passwords and privacy during the civil unrest in Tunisia.<p>My first thought was that maybe that would take the wind out of the sails of the "Jewish Zionist World Conspiracy" types.<p>Then I realised that those types probably don't read. Or think. C'est la vie.

Interesting trivia. One of the inspirations for Page Rank was undoubtably the Science Citation Index. Which was ultimately inspired by a 1945 article called <i>As We May Think</i> by Vanevar Bush.<p>HTML is inspired by the idea of hypertext, which was inspired by the idea of a memex machine, which was invented in a 1945 article called <i>As We May Think</i> by Vanevar Bush. Yes, the same article.<p>In other words Google lives in the intersection of two ideas whose history both trace back to the same essay. An essay written before most of us were alive. With that in mind it is interesting to read <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/3881/" rel="nofollow">http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-ma...</a> to see how it lead in both directions.

Please rename to "Unusual Things I Didn't Know About Google (also: the worst VC decision ever)".<p><a href="http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html</a><p>Edit: I appreciate that you are participating more on HN.<p>Edit2: To those who are downvoting: can I ask why?

I didn't downvote, but the value of HN is that it usually doesn't have this type of self-promotional claptrap or borderline content farm BS.<p>Maybe users should be able to block certain domains/contributors.