---
title: "Which came first, Google or Microsoft?"
description: "Google vs Microsoft: Microsoft came first, by 23 years — 1975 against 1998. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/google-vs-microsoft/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Google or Microsoft?

**Which came first, Google or Microsoft?: Microsoft**

1975 — 23 years before Google

Microsoft came first, by 23 years. Gates and Allen founded Micro-Soft in Albuquerque.

## Side by side

|  | Google | Microsoft |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1998 | 1975 |
| Date | 1998-09-04 | 1975-04-04 |
| Category | technology | company |
| What happened | Google Inc. was incorporated in a garage in Menlo Park. | Gates and Allen founded Micro-Soft in Albuquerque. |

## Google

The date used here is the incorporation, 4 September 1998. Two others compete: the research project called BackRub began at Stanford in 1996, and the google.com domain was registered on 15 September 1997. Google itself has celebrated its birthday on four different September dates over the years, which is a fair indication that no single one is correct. It is younger than Amazon, eBay and Netflix.

## Microsoft

Microsoft was founded in April 1975 to sell a BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800 — a product they had demonstrated before writing all of it. It predates Apple by almost exactly one year. The hyphen was dropped in 1976 and the company moved to Washington state in 1979.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Google or Microsoft?

Microsoft, by 23 years — 1975 against 1998.

### When did Google start?

1998. Google Inc. was incorporated in a garage in Menlo Park.

### When did Microsoft start?

1975. Gates and Allen founded Micro-Soft in Albuquerque.

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## Sources

- Typical range compiled from manufacturer specifications — At One Place (/about/)
- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]