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Google Upstages Facebook IPO With Search And Android: Page, Brin, Schmidt Make $1 Billion

This article is more than 10 years old.

All eyes are on Facebook this week in the lead-up to the social network's initial public offering, but one competitor did all it could to steal back a little bit of glory on Wednesday.

Practically screaming, "We're still relevant," Google hit the news hard all day with updates big and small, and their stock bounced during trading, making big winners out of Google billionaires Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt. Together, they made over $1 billion on the day.

One of the biggest pieces of news was the search company's addition of "Knowledge Graph" to their core product, a way to find answers without ever clicking a link and leaving the search results page. According to Google, there are currently more than 500 million objects about which they can display information from a database of 3.5 billion facts. That should provide plenty of added value to the millions of searches conducted each day through Google.

Google is also shifting tactics in its war against Apple for smartphone and tablet dominance, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.  Rather than create one flagship Android phone and giving it only to one wireless carrier, Google will reportedly attempt to sell devices directly to consumers and provide them for all networks. With luck, that will allow the company to have more control over its products.

Google benefited from continued good news in its copyright infringement trial with Oracle. The jury is mulling patent claims against Google, but all indications are that even in the worst case scenario they won't suffer any major penalty.

As always though, not all billionaires can be winners. Richest man in the world Carlos Slim lost more money ($1.08 billion) on Wednesday than the Google leaders earned. It was the latest in a string of big losses for Slim, and he certainly wasn't helped by the news that Morgan Stanley cut its stake in the Dutch telecom group Slim's America Movil invests in.

Meanwhile, Indian outsourcing king Azim Premji saw his net worth fall about $500 million on the day on shares of his company Wipro. H&M reported its worst monthly sales numbers in two and a half years, according to Reuters. That news hit H&M chairman Stefan Persson to the tune of $427 million.