26Taxes
Google avoided $2 billion in taxes in 2012, by transferring royalty payments from its Irish and Dutch subsidiaries to a Bermuda unit, which was simply headquartered in a local law firm.
27. Google has invested over $500 million in a secretive start-up company called Magic Leap, who aims to release retinal display VR devices.
28. When Google built a neural network and connected it to YouTube, it spontaneously taught itself to recognize cats with 74.8% accuracy.
29. When a Google employee dies their spouses receive half pay from the company for 10 years and their children receive 1,000 dollars per month until they are at least 19.
30. Shaq was one of the original investors in Google and Vitaminwater but passed up on Starbucks because he didn't drink coffee.
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31Samsung
In late 2004, Samsung had the opportunity to buy Android but passed on the investment because they did not see any potential. Google acquired it two weeks later.
32. The pacemaker, fridges, WiFi and Google Maps are all Australian inventions.
33. Bahrain's government banned Google Earth because it allowed Bahraini citizens to see vast tracts of royal-owned land and palaces next to poor and overcrowded Shi'ite villages.
34. Conservationist Marc Gross uses Google Earth and drones to shoot elephants with Capsaicin paintballs, deterring them from poachers.
35. Tribes in the Amazon are using technology like GPS and Google Earth to map their lands, monitor for illegal logging and mining, and maintain ties to their history and cultural traditions including knowledge of medicinal plants.
36Yahoo
Yahoo turned down the chance to buy Google for $1 million in 1997.
37. Google hires programmers through their own search engine.
