Deacon Jude Tam Tran

IT’S TOO LATE TO BUY IT CHEAP

“Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.” Zechariah 4:10
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Proverbs 29:18

Back in the late 1990s, the internet was still the Wild West.

Nobody fully understood what the internet would become. Most people used dial-up connections that sounded like two angry robots arguing inside a microwave. Websites looked like school science projects. And every computer seemed to have at least seventeen viruses named after fruit.

At the time, Yahoo was one of the kings of the internet.

Yahoo wasn’t just big — it was THE internet.

People today forget that.

Back then, if you wanted news, email, weather, sports, stocks, astrology, celebrity gossip, or pictures of cats wearing sunglasses, Yahoo had it all. It was the digital version of a giant shopping mall.

Meanwhile, somewhere in a garage-like environment full of caffeine, tangled wires, and questionable hygiene habits, two Stanford students named Larry Page and Sergey Brin were building a tiny search engine called Google.

And at first, almost nobody cared.

Because search engines at the time were honestly terrible.

You’d type:
“How to cook chicken.”

And the internet would respond:
“Congratulations. Here are 4,000 websites about tractors, medieval dentistry, and alien conspiracy theories.”

Google was different.

It was fast.
Clean.
Simple.
No flashing banners.
No dancing hamsters.
No horoscope popup asking if Mercury was ruining your love life.

Just a blank page and a search box.

So according to the famous Silicon Valley story, Larry and Sergey approached Yahoo and offered to sell Google for around $1 million.

Now whether the exact number was $1 million or a little higher change depending on who tells the story. Some versions say later negotiations involved bigger numbers. But the spirit of the story remains legendary:

Yahoo looked at Google and thought:
“Meh. Overpriced.”

Imagine that meeting.

Two young founders walk in with a search engine.

Yahoo executives probably leaned back in expensive office chairs thinking:
“So, let me understand this. Your entire company is basically… a search bar?”

Larry and Sergey:
“Yes.”

Yahoo:
“And that’s it?”

Google:
“Yes.”

Yahoo:
“No games? No celebrity gossips? No weather sections? No animated dancing babies?”

Google:
“No.”

Yahoo executives probably nodded politely while internally thinking:
“These kids are adorable.”

Then somebody likely said the most dangerous sentence in business history:
“I don’t see the long-term value here.”

That sentence has financially destroyed more people than bad math.

Because the truth is, revolutionary ideas almost always look small in the beginning.

Netflix looked ridiculous when Blockbuster was everywhere.
Amazon looked ridiculous when bookstores dominated retail.
Uber looked ridiculous when taxis ruled cities.
Airbnb looked ridiculous when people said:
“You want strangers to sleep in your house? Absolutely not.”

Human beings are excellent at recognizing opportunity…Right after somebody else becomes rich from it.

And Yahoo made one of the greatest business mistakes in modern history.

Because while Yahoo was busy trying to become everything, Google became exceptional at one thing.

Search.

That focus changed the world.

Over time, Google grew into a technological empire so massive that it became a verb.

Think about how insane that is.

Very few companies become verbs.

Nobody says:
“Let me Yahoo that.”

People say:
“Google it.”

That’s when you know you’ve conquered civilization.

Today, Google became part of Alphabet Inc., one of the most powerful companies on Earth, while Yahoo slowly faded from dominance like an aging rock band still performing songs from 1998 at county fairs.

And honestly, the story is both hilarious and painfully educational.

That’s the scary part.

They had money.
Talent.
Users.
Brand recognition.
Market leadership.

What they lacked was vision. They saw Google as a feature. Not a future.

And that mistake still happens every single day in modern life.

The Bible actually speaks directly about this principle.

One of the most powerful verses connected to this story is Zechariah 4:10:“Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.”

That verse perfectly describes Google’s early days.

A tiny startup.
A plain webpage.
A couple of students with an idea.
Nothing looked impressive at the beginning.
Human beings have a terrible habit of measuring the future using the standards of the present.

If something doesn’t immediately look powerful, profitable, or glamorous, we underestimate it.

Life is full of “Google moments.”

That’s why arrogance is dangerous in business.

Success often creates blindness.

When companies dominate an industry for too long, they start believing they are untouchable.

They stop listening.
Stop adapting.
Stop taking risks.

Then suddenly, some tiny startup working out of a garage shows up and destroys them with one
better idea.

History repeats this over and over.

Because giants often laugh at small beginnings.

Right before those small beginnings replace them.

There’s also another lesson here that applies personally.

A lot of people underestimate themselves because they start small.

Small business.
Small office.
Small budget.
Small audience.
Small beginning.

But nearly every great success story in history started looking unimpressive.

A tiny bookstore became Amazon.
A college networking site became Facebook.
A garage project became Apple.
Two students with a search bar became Google.

The world trains people to worship current size.

But the future belongs to growth, adaptability, and vision.

Yahoo had the size.

Google had the trajectory.

And trajectory matters more.

Another Bible verse that fits this story beautifully is Proverbs 29:18: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

The companies that survive are the ones humble enough to keep learning.

And maybe the funniest part of this entire story is imagining somebody at Yahoo years later sitting at a desk, staring at Google’s stock price, whispering softly into the void:

“We thought ONE MILLION was expensive?”

That employee probably needed therapy, prayer, and several stress sandwiches after that realization.

But honestly, we all make similar mistakes in life.

We underestimate ideas.
We underestimate people.
We underestimate ourselves.

The challenge is learning to recognize potential before the rest of the world applauds it.

Because by the time everybody agrees something is valuable…

It’s usually already too late to buy it cheap.