Google. It is unquestionably one of the most well-known companies in the world. It has empowered everyday people with information and given online businesses reasons to exist. Most importantly, it has proven that free can be profitable. But all this has to make you wonder — what would have become of the world if Google didn’t exist?

There are so many potential questions that could be asked. Could Microsoft have actually ended up in a worse position than it is today? Would Apple have gone bankrupt? Perhaps Yahoo! could have ended up as the most powerful company in the world? Would the Internet be anything like it is today?

Yahoo! Without Google

You can’t go through this scenario without considering Yahoo, previously one of Google’s biggest competitors, which is now hardly a blip on the radar anymore.

Yahoo had it all: the money, the user-base, the functionality. And all it really needed was a vision and the leadership to act upon it to reach success.

If Google had never existed, it is entirely possible that Jerry Yang and his bunch of Yahoos could have gotten their acts together to expand and dominate the Web. It is quite possible that it would be Yahoo — not Microsoft or Google — that would be the most influential powerhouse on the Internet.

Yet it’s almost impossible to imagine what direction Jerry Yang would have taken the company. These past few years haven’t produced images of prosperity, that is for sure.

It also doesn’t address the issue that, even with fierce competition in their way, Yahoo never made any drastic moves to better itself. Even to this very day, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz can’t even explain what her company does. This makes me believe that, even if Google didn’t exist, another company would have come along and challenged Yahoo, and they might have been successful in their endeavors.

Perhaps Yahoo’s destiny was already set in stone.

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