Google stock passed the $500 a share barrier yesterday. (It was $85 on launch day.) Ah! — isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing? Meanwhile, the NYT comments:

Google now has a market value of $156 billion, exceeding all but 13 American companies — icons of commerce like Exxon Mobil, Johnson & Johnson and Wal-Mart. It is worth more than any media company and all the technology companies except Microsoft, whose software empire it increasingly threatens, and Cisco Systems.

Google’s success has made its founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the 12th- and 13th-richest people in the United States, according to Forbes — and, at 33, the youngest in the top 400. Their shareholdings are worth more than $15 billion each, on top of the more than $2 billion in cash that each has received for selling some shares…