GOOG goes up

Google made its Wall Street debut today, and started trading 18% above its initial price, earning its two founders around US$41 million each--and that's before you add in the US$3 billion they're each worth on paper.

Overall, the IPO raised US$1.67 billion, valuing the company at US$23.1 billion. Now, don't you wish you'd studied math a little more diligently? That makes Google--a company that doesn't really sell anything--on a market cap with General Motors, one of the biggest companies in the world.

And what will the newly wealthy Google employees do with all that cash? At least one has already ordered a $90,000 car at a Bay Area dealership (Mr. Williams already bought one, but no one says you can't trade up), but chances are that none of them will be buying a boat.