SAN FRANCISCO: Google’s IPO, a decade ago this week, launched the company on a trajectory that continues to reshape its business and much of the world in its orbit.

And CEO Larry Page is determined to push even further.

Page’s vision is that Google’s products and services will become the control centre of people’s lives: The company’s driverless cars will chauffeur people around safer roads and deliver goods within hours of an online order.

People won’t even have to bother leaving their homes, which will be made more comfortable and enjoyable through the use of smart appliances.

Robots will handle tedious chores and other jobs, freeing up time for people to enjoy lives prolonged by health—management tools and disease—fighting breakthroughs engineered by Google. Internet-connected eyewear and watches will supplement the smartphones that ensure Google is a constant companion capable of anticipating questions and desires.

Google’s big bets are fuelled by Page’s belief that “...incrementalism leads to irrelevance over time, especially in technology, because change tends to be revolutionary, not evolutionary,” he wrote in May in Google’s annual letter to shareholders.

Although Page has been taking risks since he co-founded Google with Sergey Brin 1998, the stakes probably wouldn’t be as high if not for the company’s pivotal IPO on August 19, 2004.

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