The word is Jesus. It clearly says the word is God.
The original Koine Greek text that John 1:1 is translated from is not really so clear cut. And obviously this debate has been going on for nearly 2000 years now. But the Greek translation could also be rendered as "divine", "godlike", or "a god", and several Bible translations use that text instead.
And to translate that one verse to say they are in fact the same directly contradicts the many many other verses where they are distinctly different beings and requires inventions of concepts like God-the-Father and God-the-Son and then bending everything to fit that (which then causes confusion as we've seen right in this thread - the trinity concept is hard to grasp because the Bible doesn't support it).
And that he was with him in the beginning, which is before creation following the lead of Genesis. I don't know how else you could interpret that.
I don't disagree with that. Jesus existed long before the creation of the earth - the creation in Gensis. He was referred to as God's master worker in the act of creation even. However, Jesus was also referred to as the firstborn of ALL creation (not specifically just the Genesis creation). God has always existed - he was not created, does not have a beginning, was not born.
I didn't really intend to create a giant debate - these things typically go nowhere and the thread would end up getting closed with no one convinced of anything. But hopefully at least I've shown to you and others who may be reading that the belief of God and Jesus being the same is not as universal as you might expect, and that many things that confuse people go away when you see them as separate and distinct beings each with specific roles to play.