And all because he didn’t know HTML

We’re all familiar with the Google home screen, yes? That minimalistic, simple page with essentially nothing but the search box and the search button—seems like great design, doesn’t it? It seems like a well-thought-out decision on what should and should not be on the home page.

Well, guess again:

“We didn’t have a webmaster and I don’t do HTML.”

That’s what Sergey Brin, Google cofounder, is said to have explained.

“He put together the simplest web page he could to test out the search engine back when he was Ph.D. student,” Mayer told a Q&A audience at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan. “The first version didn’t even have search button because the return button worked just fine. We just kind of stumbled into it.”

That iconic page design—and all because Sergey Brin didn’t care about HTML. (The article has some more tidbits; go read.)