Google Searches Its Soul

Inside the search giant’s effort to get more diverse— and to change the way we all see the world.

- Ellen McGirt

GOOGLE IS OUR EYE into the world. The search giant has earned an intimate role in the lives of billions of people through its astounding ability to find, sort, and deliver information instantaneously. Google handles trillions of queries per year—or 80% of all Internet searches on the planet.

It’s the portal through which we channel our collective curiosity. Should I worry about that weird rash on my leg? What’s Brexit? Who was the winning pitcher for the Kansas City Royals in game seven of the 1985 World Series?

Google brings the world to us. Would you like a bird’s-eye view of the vacation house your cousin is renting in Panama? Google it. Want to see what the Lascaux cave paintings in France look like? Google Image them. Wish you could go back and see Prince’s performance of “Purple Rain” at the American Music Awards in 1985? Search Google’s YouTube and you can experience it.

The company’s hegemony in search has laid the foundation for an incredible business built on ad sales. Alphabet, the parent of Google, last year ranked No. 36 on the Fortune 500, with some $75 billion in sales—up from No. 92 and $29 billion just five years earlier. According to estimates from S&P Global, Alphabet will report more than $19 billion in profit for 2016 on $89 billion in revenue.

Google has vanquished all challengers in search over the years—sorry, Yahoo and Bing—through the consistent refinement of its algorithmic wizardry. As the world around the Google plex shifts, so must its products adjust to keep its otherworldly ability to serve up the correct information.