In 1998, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page approached Yahoo.com and suggested a merger. Yahoo, which could have snapped up the company for a handful of stock, suggested that the young googlers keep working on their little school project and come back when they had grown up.
Within five years, Google had an estimated market capitalization of $20 billion.
[Google (which went public in 2004) was also turned down by the likes of Excite and AltaVista.]
Sources
Details, Feb 2002, p. 92
