Sergey Brin. How Sergey Brin founded the world's largest search engine Google Who is Sergey Brin
Internet entrepreneur and specialist in the field of computer technology Sergey Mikhailovich Brin was born on August 21, 1973 in Russia, in Moscow. In 1971, Brin, a native of a family of Soviet mathematicians and economists, fleeing the persecution of Jews, emigrated to the United States with his family. After graduating in mathematics and computer engineering from the University of Maryland at College Park, Brin entered Stanford University, where he met Larry Page. At that time, both defended doctoral dissertations in computer technology.
At Stanford University, Brin and Page start a research project to create a search engine that sorts information by the popularity of searched pages, based on the findings that the most popular pages are, in most cases, the most useful. They call their search engine "Google" - from the mathematical term "google", which means the number 10 raised to the hundredth power - wanting to express their intention to organize the huge amount of information available on the network.
With the help of family, friends and investors, with the help of a start-up capital of one million US dollars, in 1998 the friends found their own company. Headquartered in the heart of California's Silicon Valley, in August 2004 Brin and Page unveil Google, which makes its founders billionaires. Since then, “Google” has managed to become the most popular search engine in the world, receiving, according to 2013 data, 5.9 billion searches per day.
Birth of YouTube
In 2006, Google acquires YouTube, the world's most popular website for streaming user-generated videos, for US$1.65 billion.
In March 2013, Brin is ranked 21st on the Forbes Billionaires List and 14th on the American Billionaires List. As of September 2013, Brin's network was valued at $24.4 billion, according to Forbes.com. Brin is now Director of Special Projects at Google and continues to oversee the day-to-day operations of the company along with Page, Google's CEO, and Eric Schmidt, the company's chief executive.
Quotes
“Big problems are easier to solve than small ones.”
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Sergey Brin is an American entrepreneur, specialist in computer technology, information technology and economics. Together with Larry Page, he co-founded the Google search engine.
Sergey was born in Moscow into a family of graduates of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University Mikhail Brin and Evgenia Krasnokutskaya, Jews by nationality. Sergei's family belonged to hereditary scientists. His paternal grandfather also studied mathematics, and his grandmother studied philology.
When the boy is five years old, the family immigrates to the United States under the resettlement program. Brin's father becomes an honorary professor at the University of Maryland, and his mother collaborates with major NASA and HIAS companies.
Young Seryozha, like his parents, turned out to be a promising mathematician. In elementary school, the boy studied according to the Montessori program. Sergey went to a school for gifted children and even at this level he stood out for his abilities. On a computer donated by his father, the boy created the first programs, printed out his homework, which surprised the teachers. The grandmother of the future genius lamented that Sergey had only computers in his head.
In high school, Brin traveled to the Soviet Union on an experience exchange program. After the young man saw life in his former homeland, Sergei thanked his father for taking him away from Russia.
Later, the young man would once again express his anti-Russian position, calling the development of this country "Nigeria in the snow", and the government - "a gang of bandits." Seeing the resonance of such words, Sergey Brin refused these phrases and began to assure that he meant something else, and these sayings were twisted by journalists.
Business and Technology
After school, the young man enters the University of Maryland and receives a bachelor's degree in mathematics and computing systems. Brin completed his master's degree at the prestigious Stanford University in California. There, Sergei became seriously interested in Internet technologies and set about developing a search engine for a new system.
At the university, Sergey Brin met graduate student Larry Page, which became a decisive moment in the biography of both computer geniuses.
At first, young people were constant opponents in discussions, but gradually became friends and even wrote a joint scientific work “Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertext Internet Search System”, in which they proposed a new principle of data processing to search for information on the global Web. This work eventually became the 10th most popular of all Stanford scientific papers.
In 1994, a young experimenter created a program that automatically searched the Playboy website for new images and uploaded the photos to Brin's computer.
But gifted mathematicians decided not to leave scientific work exclusively on paper. On its basis, the programmers created the Back Rub student search engine, which proved the viability of this idea. Sergey and Larry came up with the idea not just to display the result of processing a search request, but to rank the received data according to demand from other users. Now this is the norm for all systems.
In 1998, as graduate students at the university, young people decided to sell their own idea, but no one dared to make such an acquisition. Then, after creating a business plan, which showed that an amount of $ 1 million is needed for the initial capital, the young people decided to open a business themselves. I had to borrow money from relatives, friends and colleagues. Both Brin and Page left graduate school.
By improving some aspects of their offspring, the programmers turned university development into a large-scale business. The new system was called "Googol", which means "One with a hundred zeros."
Well, the name known to the whole world today was due to an error. When young people were looking for investors, only the head of Sun Microsystems, Andy Bechtolsheim, responded to their call. The businessman believed the young geniuses and wrote out a check for a tidy sum, but not in the name of the registered Google, but in the non-existent Google Inc.
Soon the media started talking about the new search engine. Google raised its head even more when it weathered the “dot-com crash” in the early 2000s, when hundreds of Internet companies went bankrupt one after another.
In 2007, about the unique Google search engine, David Wise and Mark Malseed created the book Google. Breakthrough in the spirit of the times”, which described the success story of each of the co-founders of the search engine and their achievements.
Sergey Brin believes that the Apple and Facebook organizations undermine the main idea of the Internet as a free network and free access to any information. Also, the businessman categorically disagrees with the idea of fighting against Internet piracy and closing free access to books, music, and films.
Personal life
For a long time, the personal life of Sergey Brin was in the background. Already being famous and incredibly wealthy, Sergey Brin started a family. The programmer's wife was Anna Wojcicki, a graduate of Yale University in Biology and the founder of her own company 23andMe. The wedding took place in 2007 in the Bahamas, and a year later the couple had a son, Benji. In 2011, the family expanded again: now they have a daughter.
Unfortunately, the birth of a girl did not strengthen marital relations. Two years later, due to Sergey's romance with the corporation's employee Amanda Rosenberg, Brin and Wojcicki parted ways, and in 2015 they officially filed for divorce.
Sergey Brin is engaged in giant charitable investments. Including the entrepreneur transferred $ 500 thousand to support the Wikipedia project, which, according to the American entrepreneur, just meets the principles of free access to information.
Together with Larry Page, Sergey is engaged in the fight against aging and finances a number of projects in this area. After Brin's mother fell ill with Parkinson's disease, and genetic analysis showed that he himself had a predisposition to this disease, the businessman ordered a biological corporation to calculate how the gene changes with this disease. The mathematician is sure that correcting a mistake in genetics is no more difficult than in a computer code. It is only important to know what to fix.
Since Brin and Page launched the Google Glass interactive video camera glasses, Sergey has been using them at home, on the street, or at work. And in all the photos since 2013, he appears with this “wearable computer” on his face.
Sergey Brin in everyday life is far from kitsch and luxury. But the creator of Google eventually decided to change housing to a more comfortable one. In the state of New Jersey, the programmer bought a house, the cost of which reaches $49 million. The mansion consists of 42 rooms, most of which are bedrooms and bathrooms. In addition to living quarters, the house has a swimming pool, fitness center, basketball court, wine cellars and bars.
Sergey Brin is interested in innovations and technological projects, which can be seen from the photo from his official Instagram. The young man maintains a healthy lifestyle, playing sports. Sergey's hobbies include piloting an aircraft.
The beginning of an extreme hobby was the acquisition of a Boeing 767-200 aircraft, which was called the "Google Jet", together with Page. Its cost was $ 25 million. But, of course, the programmer trusts professionals to make flights, being content with rare sorties on a training ship.
Sergey Brin now
The company of Sergey Brin and Larry Page continues to develop. The main office is located in the center of Silicon Valley. The democratic attitude towards employees amazes even sophisticated observers.
Employees are allowed 20% of their working time to do personal business, come to work with four-legged pets, and play sports on Saturdays. The dining room of the corporation is served only by chefs with the highest category. Both co-founders of Google never graduated from graduate school, so Eric Schmidt, Ph.D.
Condition assessment
In 2016, the popular Forbes magazine ranked Brin as the 13th richest person in the world. The financial growth of Google Inc began in 2004, and soon both co-founders of Google began to call themselves billionaires. In 2018, according to financiers, the fortune of Sergey Brin was $ 47.2 billion. Larry Page is ahead of his colleague by $ 1.3 billion.
Sergey Mikhailovich Brin is an entrepreneur and IT specialist, co-founder of the Google empire.Childhood and youth
The future billionaire was born in Moscow into an intelligent Jewish family. Grandfather, Israel Abramovich, taught at the Moscow Power Engineering Institute. Father, Mikhail Izrailevich, graduated with honors from the Mechanics and Mathematics Department of Moscow State University, worked as a researcher at a research institute under the State Planning Commission. Mother, Evgenia Krasnokutskaya, worked as an engineer at the Institute of Oil and Gas. 
Despite the outward well-being of the family, Sergei's parents could not count on career advancement due to the anti-Semitism that took place in Soviet scientific circles. They were obviously not infringed, but the party committee did not recommend enrolling Mikhail Izrailevich in graduate school, he was not allowed to go on business trips abroad.
In 1979, as soon as the opportunity arose, the family emigrated to the United States. The Brins settled in Maryland in the eastern United States and rented a house. Mom found a job at NASA, where she deals with meteorology, and her father received a professorship at the University of Maryland. Sergei's grandmother specifically passed on the right to take her grandson to school.
The son was sent to the prestigious Montessori private school. At first, learning in a foreign language was difficult for the boy, but in six months he fully adapted and soon became one of the best students. He communicated with his parents and still communicates in Russian.
For his nineth birthday, his father gave Serezha a computer, which at that time was a rarity even for Americans. Sergey quickly mastered the miracle technique and began to surprise parents and teachers with his superpowers for programming. Soon he was transferred to a high school in Greenbelt, where the teenager mastered the college program in three years.
After graduating ahead of schedule (in 3 years) from the University of Maryland, the talented young man received a bachelor's degree in mathematics and computer engineering, earned a prestigious scholarship to continue his education and thought about his future career. Sergey decided to move to Silicon Valley and enter Stanford University. There was a fateful meeting that changed his life.
Birth of Google
In the early 90s, he met a young scientist, Larry Page. According to one version, Page was instructed to show Sergey the campus and tell how everything works there, and during the tour they found a common language. Another version says that at first Page and Brin, as is often the case with people of equal intelligence, disliked each other and competed. 
One way or another, the acquaintance took place, and then grew into a strong friendship and fruitful cooperation. At that time, Brin was passionate about developing a search engine that would greatly simplify the use of the Internet. He was amazed that Larry not only supported his idea, but also made some useful corrections and suggestions.
The friends abandoned the rest of their affairs and directed all their creative energy to the implementation of their project. Soon a trial search engine, BackRub, appeared, which not only found the necessary pages on the Internet, but also systematized them by the number of requests. It only remained to find an investor who would believe in their development and invest a tidy sum in it.
Stanford refused to pay for the experiments of young programmers: not only did their search engine "gobble up" half of the official Internet traffic, it also gave ordinary users documents intended purely for official use. The friends were faced with a choice: to abandon the brainchild and continue working on a doctoral thesis, or to look for an investor for their project.
It was Andy Bechtolsheim, a businessman and founder of Sun Microsystems, who allocated one hundred thousand dollars to young scientists. They collected the rest of the necessary million from relatives and friends. September 7, 1998 is considered the official birthday of Google, and the first office of the future giant of the IT industry is located in the garage of Brin's friend Susan Wojzecki.
There is a popular tale that Brin and Papage wanted to name the company "Googol" (in honor of ten to the hundredth power), but the investor wrote them a check in the name of the company "Google", and the friends decided to leave everything as it is. It's not, but what an interesting legend!
Sergey and Larry took a sabbatical from the university and devoted themselves entirely to the project. Two years later, their site received the prestigious Webby Awards. In the early 2000s, developers created an algorithm that helped advertisers suggest products to users based on their search queries (we now know this algorithm as “targeted ads”). In 2004, the names of young scientists appeared on the Forbes list of billionaires.
The reason for the divorce was Sergei's affair with a young employee of his company, Amanda Rosenberg. In order to get closer to the boss, the insidious homeowner rubbed herself into the confidence of his wife and even became her close friend. As a result, Amanda managed to destroy their marriage, but she never managed to become the legal wife of a millionaire.
Sergey Brin now
Sergey Brin is one of the twenty richest people on the planet. In 2017, he was ranked 13th with $39.8 billion (Larry Page was 12th with $40.7 billion). Brin is co-president of Alphabet Holding (Google's parent company).Today, almost every Internet user is familiar with Google. Its founder, Sergey Brin, a Jew by nationality, has long thought about the need for a discovery of this kind. His biography is a vivid example of the fact that today it is quite possible to make a discovery, to create a brilliant project.
Brin's life in the USSR
Sergey's biography originates in the USSR, so the Russian people can proudly say today that the creator of the unique Google system, Sergey Mikhailovich Brin, is our fellow countryman, a Russian. Brin Sergey Mikhailovich was born in Moscow in 1973 in a family of mathematicians.
His mother, Evgenia, worked as an engineer, while his father was a gifted mathematician. However, in the former Soviet Union, Mikhail Brin experienced great inconvenience: latent anti-Semitism posed barriers to a talented mathematician. After graduating from Moscow State University, he was denied admission to graduate school, which pushed him to the fact that Brin began to work on his Ph.D. thesis “in private”. Mathematicians were not allowed to go abroad to scientific conferences either. But for unknown reasons, he was signed a visa to travel to the United States on a private invitation.
And at the end of the 70s of the last century, families who wanted to change their place of residence began to leave the Soviet Union. One of the first to decide to leave the country was Mikhail Brin. In the USA, he had many familiar mathematicians, so the choice fell on this power. So the biography of six-year-old Sergei took a sharp turn: he turned from a Soviet citizen into an American.
The beginning of the life of the Brins in the USA
After the move, the father of the family settled at the University of Maryland in the small town of College Park. His wife got a job as a scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Agency.
Sergey Brin, the future founder of Google, during his studies began to amaze teachers with completed homework assignments, which he printed out on a home printer. After all, at that time, even in the United States, not everyone in families had computers - it was a rare luxury. Sergey Brin, on the other hand, owned a real Commodore 64 computer, which his father gave him for his nineth birthday.
Years of doctoral studies
Upon graduation, Sergey Brin is educated at the University of Maryland, where his father worked. With a bachelor's degree in his pocket, the future founder of Google moves to Silicon Valley - the place where the most powerful minds of the country are concentrated. The myriad of tech institutions and high-tech companies in Silicon Valley provide a wide range of choices for those who want to improve their knowledge. Sergey Brin chooses among the whole mass of offers a super-prestigious computer university - that was Stanford University.
Anyone who did not know Brin well could be mistaken in believing that the future founder of Google was a “nerd” - Sergey, like most young studio students, preferred fun classes to boring doctoral studies. The main disciplines to which Sergey Brin devoted the lion's share of his time were gymnastics, dancing, and swimming. But, despite this, a sharp idea, the name of which was “Google search engine.
After all, a lover of the fascinating Playboy site was sorry for his time and effort to “comb” it in order to look for something new. And, as they say, laziness is the very first reason for progress - and Sergey Brin created a program, independently and personally for his needs, which automatically found everything “fresh” on the site and downloaded this material to the PC of a resourceful young man.
The meeting of two geniuses that changed the whole world of the Internet
Here, at Stanford University, the meeting of the future founders of Google took place. Larry Page and Sergey Brin made up a wonderful intellectual tandem, which brought a unique innovation to the Internet - the original Google search engine.
However, the first meeting did not at all bode well: both Sergey Brin and Larry Page were a match for each other - both proud, ambitious, uncompromising. However, at some point in their disputes and screams, two magic words flashed - “search engines” - and the young men realized that this was their common interest.
We can say that this meeting was an important milestone in the destinies of both young people. And who knows if Sergey's biography would have been replenished with the discovery of Google if he hadn't met Larry? Although today it is generally accepted that it is Sergey Brin who is the founder of Google, while undeservedly forgetting to mention Larry Page.
First search page
Meanwhile, Sergey Brin, together with Larry Page, now, having abandoned all youthful amusements, pored over their “brainchild” for days. And in 1996, in the computer of Stanford University, where both young men studied, a page appeared - the predecessor of the now well-known Google search engine. The search page was called BackRub, which translated as "you - to me, and I - to you." It was the scientific work of graduate students whose names were Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Later, the search page became known as PageRank.
BackRub founder Sergey Brin kept a server with a hard drive in his dorm room. Its volume was equal to one terabyte or 1024 "gigabytes", if translated into the modern language of computer scientists. BackRub's principle of operation was based on not just finding pages on the Internet upon request, but ranking them depending on how often other pages link to them, how often Internet users access them. Actually, this principle was subsequently developed in the Google system.
The future founders of Google, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, became even more established in their decision to continue working on improving the search system, because even this imperfect program began to be used by a huge number of people. For example, in 1998, about ten thousand users applied here daily.
However, the proverb that the initiative must always be punished at this time was very inopportunely realized. Sergey Brin recalls that Stanford professors were outraged that the service began to consume most of the university Internet traffic. But the worst thing for teachers was not even that - the future creators of Google were accused of hooliganism!
The reason for everything was the imperfection of the system. And she even "flaunted" university "closed" documents, access to which was strictly limited. At this time, the biography of the future founders of Google could well have received such a negative fact as being expelled from the university.
Turning Google into Google
Young people were already developing their grandiose discovery, they even came up with the name of the company - Googol, which meant one with one hundred zeros. The meaning of this name was that the company would have a huge base, a huge number of users! But it became impossible to work further on the university computer, so it was urgent to look for investors.
As it turned out, it’s not enough to come up with a bright name for your company, you also need to be able to convince wealthy people to believe in your genius, to decide to invest your capital. And here Sergey Brin and Larry Page could not find their vein in any way - the majority of potential investors did not even want to talk about the company.
And suddenly the young people were surprisingly lucky: businessman Andy Bechtolsheim, the one who was among the founders of Sun Microsystems Corporation, decided to help them. However, he did not even listen to the confused speech of the young men, but somehow immediately believed in their genius and success.
Andy, two minutes into the conversation, took out his checkbook and began to write out a check for one hundred thousand dollars, inquiring about the name of the company. And only when they went out into the street, the young people discovered a “mistake”: their investor casually, due to his inattention, renamed their offspring, putting the name of the company “Google Inc” instead of “Googol”.
Now the partners faced a new problem: in order to receive the money on the check, it was necessary to register Google as a matter of urgency. Sergey Brin, together with Larry Page, took an academic leave from the university and began to urgently call friends and relatives in order to obtain some funding to achieve their goal. It took a whole week, and on September 7, 1998, the birth of Google with a million-dollar capital in the account was officially registered.
The success of the search engine is the success of its creators
At first, Google's staff consisted of four people. Sergey Brin was a leading founding member of Google. Most of the finances went to business development - there was practically nothing left for advertising. However, in 1999, all the major media were ringing about a successful Internet search engine, the number of Google users increased many times over. Sergey Brin and Larry Page pointed out that Google search was not limited to a few powerful servers - Google supported several thousand simple personal computers.
In the summer of 2004, the company's shares on the stock exchange received the highest value. Sergey and Larry were at the peak of their success.
From that moment on, Sergey Brin's biography underwent a dramatic upheaval: he and his companion friend turned into billionaires. The fortune of each today is estimated at over 18 billion dollars.
Work in a company
Today, the company has a main office in the very center of Silicon Valley. The comfort in which employees work here shakes the most democratically organized companies and corporations.
Sergey Brin is an American businessman of Russian origin, IT scientist, co-founder of Google.
Until 2015, Brin served as director of special projects at Google, and is currently president of parent company Alphabet Inc., which has united a number of brands under its wing, including Google.
Mr. Brin is rightfully considered the richest immigrant in the United States - his fortune is estimated by Forbes at $49.6 billion. In the Billionaires 2018 list, he takes 13th place, in the ranking of the most influential on the planet - 35th.
All over the world, an IT specialist is better known under the name "Sergey Brin". Biography of Sergey Brin, an emigrant from the Soviet Union, is an example of the embodiment of the "American dream". A talented Jewish boy realized himself in the USA and achieved success on his own. Is the entrepreneur “born in the USSR” grateful to the country that sheltered him? The success story of Sergey Brin tells about it.
Born in USSR
08/21/1973 Sergey Mikhailovich Brin was born in an intelligent Moscow Jewish family. The boy's closest relatives were scientists.
Sergey's father, Mikhail Izrailevich Brin (born 1948), graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University. I wanted to be an astrophysicist, but I didn’t get into the physics department: citizens of Jewish nationality were not allowed to study physics, which was considered military science, because of “unreliability”.
Brin's father Mikhail dreamed of becoming an astrophysicist, but became a mathematician because of anti-Semitism
He also did not go to graduate school because of his nationality, but he defended his dissertation as an “applicant for a scientific degree” and became a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences.
Sergey's mother, Evgenia Valentinovna (nee Krasnokutskaya, born in 1949) also graduated from Moscow State University. The grandmother of the future billionaire by father, Maya Brin, taught English.
Brin's parents worked as researchers: his mother worked at the Institute of Oil and Gas, his father worked at the Research Economic Institute under the State Planning Committee of the USSR.
The mathematical conference of the 77th year, held in Warsaw, showed the head of the family the prospects for the development of the industry. In the USSR, scientists experienced oppression on a national basis and did not see a future, so Mikhail is thinking about leaving the country. In 1978, after applying for a visa, Brin Sr. and his wife were fired from their jobs.
In 1979, Mikhail Brin transports his mother Maya, his wife and 6-year-old son to the land of opportunity - America. The Brins managed to "jump into the last car" - later visas were not issued until the "perestroika".
Successful immigration
10/25/1979 The Brins arrive in America in the state of Maryland.
Maya Brin becomes professor of Russian studies at the University of Maryland, where she has been teaching for 10 years. Now the university has a lecturer's position named after her - Maya Brin Distinguished Lecturer in Russian.
After the death of his grandmother in March 2012, Sergey Brin contributed $600,000 to establish a fund named after her
The Maya Brin Resident Program welcomes scientists and cultural figures from the Russian Federation to the United States.
Mikhail Brin gets a job at the University of Maryland as a professor of mathematics, his wife becomes an employee of the climatology department at NASA. Later, Evgenia will lead the Jewish Immigrant Aid Society, an organization that helped them move. In 2009 Sergey Brin will donate $1 million to this charity fund.
At the Maryland University, the Brins have their own circle of friends, the professors are friends with each other by families. At first, the Brins did not live well, but often went to Sutton, Quebec to go skiing.
In the US, the Brins have a second son, Sam. He is the CEO and co-founder of Butter Systems, a "tablet restaurant" company where diners browse menus and order via tablets.
The billionaire's parents are already retired and live in California near their children and grandchildren.
School years
Primary School
In America, Serezha entered Paint Branch Montessori, an elementary school where teaching was carried out according to the Montessori method. This pedagogical system consists in the free education of children with an emphasis on sensory perception. Students are assisted in natural development and taught skills that will be useful to become an effective member of society.
Montessori pedagogy, in which Sergey Brin studied, implies the presence of a specially equipped space
The Brins tried to give the child the best, they understood the importance of a good education. To take her grandson to school, grandmother Maya rents her license. A first-grader does not immediately get rid of the accent, but he masters well among his peers.
8-year-old immigrant Sergey Brin with a pet named Boss
At age 9, Brin Sr. buys his son a Commodore 64 personal computer. In 1982, having a PC was very cool.
After the Montessori school, Serezha is sent to an elementary school at the synagogue. The boy was not interested in the history of the Jews, and he tortured his parents with requests to transfer him to another institution. When Sergey turned 11, the Brins went to Israel. A visit to the Promised Land had a beneficial effect on Serezha's national self-identification. He clearly understood that no matter where he was, he would always be different from everyone else: sometimes he was a visitor among the locals, sometimes he was the smartest in the class, sometimes he simply had a different nationality.
High School: "Genius? Learn home economics!"
Brin continues her schooling at Eleanor Roosevelt High School (1987–1990). In high school, the student flaunted his mathematical knowledge and entered into debates with teachers.
The Brins noted their son's talent in mathematics and computers, but could not imagine that he would become a billionaire
Even in the US, Brin suffers from “leveling” aimed at “pulling out” lagging behind students and equalizing with “average students”. After the 10th grade, he complained to his father that studying was boring, because he managed to study mathematics and physics courses in the 11th and 12th grades. Brin Sr. asked the school authorities what they plan to do with his genius son in the last 2 years of school. "American history and household economics," came the reply.
Mikhail Brin, father of the co-founder of Google, believes that "equality should not be at the expense of developing talented people"
Homecoming: "Comeback then USSR"
In the summer of 1990, a couple of weeks before his 17th birthday, Sergei, along with other talented students, went to the USSR on a 2-week exchange tour. On the trip, a group of schoolchildren is supervised by Serezha's father.
No wonder the 90s are called "dashing", the country met a high school student in all its "glory": the collapse of industry, the atmosphere of unemployment. The trip revived Sergei's childhood fears of the authorities. On the second day of his stay in the Union, he thanked his father for taking his family to the USA. Sometimes moving is the best solution. Another billionaire also thanks his father for the move: having fled from Hungary to the UK, the family escaped the Nazis, who were solving the "Jewish question."
And yet Sergei admits that his rebelliousness arose precisely because he was born in Moscow. Perhaps disobedience to the rules and dislike of the system are not the worst qualities of character that were useful to a businessman in the future.
In the family with his parents, Sergei communicates in Russian, but speaks with a slight accent, which can be assessed in his interview during a visit to Moscow (2008)
Sergey Brin visited Moscow, 2008
University of Maryland
In 1990, Sergey entered the University of Maryland, College Park with a degree in Mathematics and Computer Science (Math + computer science). As a student, by his own admission, he was “loafing”, but at the same time he completed the education program ahead of schedule, not in 4, but in 3 years. In 1993, Brin received a bachelor's degree with honors - Bachelor of Arts / Science.
Stanford University
In 1993, Brin received a grant from the National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship, which opened the doors of any US university for him. A graduate chooses Stanford, specializing in Computer Science. Stanford University, located in Silicon Valley, could not fail to attract Brin, who dreams of achieving success in the IT field. Stanford University is one of the best universities in the country, in 2018 for the 4th time according to Reuters it was named the most innovative university on the planet.
After graduating from Stanford and receiving a master's degree (Master of Science), Brin begins work on a thesis. His scientific curator Rajiv Motwani, who later became an investor and consultant to Google, characterizes Sergey as a "talented sassy youngster." During his studies, Sergei was actively involved in sports: roller skating, skiing, gymnastics - this is an incomplete list of his sports activities.
Fateful Stanford
Stanford University greatly influenced the future life of an IT genius:
- with his future wife, Ann Wojcicki(Anne Wojcicki), Sergei met while studying at the university. Anna was the daughter of the dean of the physics department
- Sergey also met the future co-founder of Google at alma mater. The meeting took place in the spring of 1995, when Sergei was asked to show the newly arrived students the campus. Among the newcomers was 22-year-old Larry, who came after the University of Michigan to continue his education.
- within the walls of the University building named after Bill Gates Gates Computer Science Building, where the Department of Computer Science (CSD - Computer Science Department) and the Laboratory of Computer Systems (CSL - Computer Systems Laboratory) are located, in room No. 360, the Google project was born. This building, completed in 1996, was funded by Mr. Gates for $6 million.
Corps them. Bill Gates at Stanford - the birthplace of the Google project
- university professor David Cheriton was the person who introduced Larry and Page to Andy Bechtolsheim, their first investor
How Google started
Google co-founders: enhanced 2-in-1 effect
Sergey Brin and Larry Page saw each other as a worthy "enemy". Controversy ensues between two capable young people: at last, smart people could discuss on an equal footing. Numerous disputes grow into friendship and cooperation. Sergey is an extrovert, Larry is more reserved. The difference in characters made it possible to effectively organize successful activities.
The example of the co-founders of Google is not the first and not the last case of a successful partnership, remember the tandems of Hewlett and Packard, and Paul Allen, and Steve Wozniak. According to an Octopus Group survey, 76% of firm founders believe that a second founder would do business.
Page & Brin is an example of a successful business partnership
Startup Evolution: BackRub – PageRank – Google
From 1995 to 1998, Brin and Page came up with ideas to make it easier to search the Internet. They jointly write the scientific work "Anatomy of a large-scale hypertext Internet search system", which later became the 10th most popular.
Larry goes deeper into the project BackRub(English "back massage"), which explores back links (back links); soon Sergei joins the work. Having improved the search algorithm, they call it PageRank(page is both "page" in English and Page's last name). The updated program evaluates and ranks web pages by importance.
In 1996, Brin and Page create the project's first server, consisting of four 10-gigabyte hard drives. Their "life hack" is his body, assembled from Lego.
the case of the first server Sergey and Larry made according to the principle "cheap and cheerful" - from the designer's figures
co-founders of "Google" at first could not purchase a large server and collected several PCs in a network
Where only the guys did not find a PC for their startup! They begged from friends, looked in warehouses: all of a sudden someone ordered, and did not redeem. Several computers they united in a network. Poverty has become: the failure of one computer did not affect the operation of the entire server, and repairing such a multi-element server turned out to be easier and cheaper.
In 1997 they call the project "Google". The invented name plays on the consonance with "googol" (from the English googol) - a mathematical term denoting a unit with one hundred zeros. The name of the search engine realized the desire of the founders of the startup to structure the vast arrays of information on the network.
In 2002, the American Dialectological Society, which registers new words, names the word "google" as the "word of the year".
Search is based on the principle that a person can change the search algorithm, but is not able to influence a specific search result. The rule allows you to produce objective search results.
The test version of the search engine was based on the Stanford web server at www.google.stanford.edu. Having existed there for just over a year, the search engine exceeds the bandwidth of the university's Internet channel.
Attempts to sell Google: there would be no happiness, but misfortune helped
Graduate students did not develop Internet search, but successfully improved its algorithm, which did not limit the speed of the search engine. Estimating their "brainchild" at $ 1 million, Page and Brin in 1998 decide to sell innovative technology. But neither Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers venture fund, nor AltaVista, Excite and Infoseek are showing interest in Google. Co-founder of Yahoo! David Filo advised IT smart people to build their own business on the developed technology.
The Google project, which no one bought in 1998, made its creators billionaires in 2004
In August 1998, the Google Guys meet Andy Bechtolsheim, founder of Sun Microsystems. The investor, seeing the commercial potential of the project, writes a check for $100,000 to Google Inc. - a corporation that has not yet been in sight. To cash the check, September 4, 1998, Brin and Page register a company. In the same month, aspiring businessmen move to 232 Santa Margarita Avenue in Menlo Park, where they rent a bedroom and garage from Susan Wojcicki (the sister of Brin's future wife). Susan joined Google in 1999 and has been CEO of Youtube since 2014.
In 1999, the firm moved to larger premises in Palo Alto, six months later acquired its own office in Mountain View, where it lives to this day, and receives a loan of $ 25 million. It becomes no longer possible to combine business and doctoral studies, and in 1999 Larry and Sergey leave the walls of the university. Brin's parents were upset that their son didn't get his doctorate.
Already in 2000, Google becomes the world's largest search engine.
Sergey Brin and Google: wake up a billionaire
Page becomes president of the company's products, Brin becomes president of technology. Since 2011, Sergey Brin has been managing special projects, and since 2015 he has been the president of the Alfavit conglomerate.
On August 13, 2004, the company completed its initial public offering. Google announced an IPO for a total of $2,718,281,828, which is the value of the fundamental mathematical constant "e" (e ≈ 2.71828..).
After evaluating the share at $108–$135, the co-founders of the firm lowered the price to $85. As of January 2019, Google offers just over $1,070 per security (NASDAQ: GOOGL Alphabet Inc.).
Brin, 30, owned 38.5 million shares and the IPO made him a billionaire. Great birthday present!
In 2015, Google was reorganized into the international conglomerate Alphabet Inc. The new company replaced Google Inc. as a public company. Larry Page became its CEO, Sergey Brin became its president.
Creation of Alphabet Inc. aims to improve the management of unrelated projects. In addition to companies with technological specialization, areas in the field of health care Life Sciences, Calico, investments, etc. have been identified.
In 2018, Google celebrated its 20th anniversary. It has a market capitalization of $367.6 billion and sales of $66 billion (Forbes 2018). The Google trademark was ranked 2nd among the most valuable brands and is valued at more than $132 billion.
Google is not only the best search engine, but also convenient services and tools: Google Translate translator, Google Chrome browser, Android OS, Google Earth, Google Maps, Gmail email, YouTube video hosting resource (purchased in 2006), tools for contextual advertising Google AdWords, etc.
Sergey Brin: “I am not like everyone else, and my company is also not like others”
How the staff expanded: “Hire me if you can”
The first employee of Google is a classmate of the co-founders, Stanford doctoral student Craig Silverstein. When the team grew to 40 people, in 1999 another specialist came to the staff - Charlie Ayers. He was neither a technical genius nor a salesperson. Mr. Ayers is a top-notch chef! After all, Google is people first!
The first employees of Google. Now the staff of the international company consists of 53,600 people
Since its inception, the company has received more than 5 million applications from applicants. In the matter of selecting suitable candidates, Google management is innovative. Once they arranged a math quest that began with a hint on a roadside billboard, and only after solving all the problems, applicants got a chance to get an interview at Google. The founders of the company do not look at diplomas; talented self-taught specialists who have not graduated from college also work here.
In 2018, Google took pride of place in the Forbes #6 lists as the best employer for graduates (Best Employers for New Grads) and
and No. 17 among employers for women (Best Employers for Women).
Beneficial charity
The company purposefully sponsors the improvement of the quality of education, in fact, "cultivating" future talented employees nearby:
- summer program "The Summer of Code" to introduce students to open source development technologies (costs $ 2 million)
- the Anita Borg Scholarship, for gifted graduate and undergraduate computer science students (named after Ms. Borg, one of the first women PhDs in computer science).
Corporate culture: "so that the cow gives more milk"
At the service of Google employees - cafes and microkitchens with free lunches.
Believing that well-fed workers are more productive, Google invests $72 million annually. for their food. Compared to Brin and Page, it's just Scrooge McDuck, not even providing Amazon.com employees with free parking.
The headquarters is located in the Googleplex building, whose name refers to the number "googolplex", one followed by one hundred zeros.
Google Headquarters "Googleplex" in Mountain View, California
In addition to the "daily food" at the service of workers - tennis, billiards, fitness centers, massage rooms, beauty salons and meditation rooms. Googleplex is not like the conservative offices of established companies.
Sports courts are one of the free services for Google employees.
The company also demonstrates its originality in the design of 70 workrooms in more than 40 countries around the world. The interiors of the representative offices are designed taking into account the local color.
Meeting room "38 parrots" in the Moscow office of the company
From the capsule of rest of the Moscow office of the representative office "Google" offers a wonderful view of the capital
A fifth of working time is allowed to be allocated to projects that are not included in the terms of reference, but lie in the professional field. The Gmail mailer was just born thanks to the time allocated for “thinking”.
Google is a good example of good corporate communication. On Thursdays, Larry Page and Sergey Brin discuss with employees how Google's mission is being carried out around the world.
Google's mission is to organize all the information in the world, making it accessible and easy to use.
Informality in the corporate culture does not interfere, but, on the contrary, accelerates the decision-making process and the implementation of new ideas. The 9th commandment of Google says - you can be serious without a tie. Well, the 1st commandment of the company says "the first thing is the user."
Google Glass Project: "Smile, you're being filmed by a hidden camera"
Brin oversaw the company's special projects in the Google X division. The first big project of the "secret lab" was Google Glass augmented reality glasses, announced in the summer of 2012. This headset for Android smartphones is equipped with a display and a camera located slightly above the right eye.
Brin appears in all 2013 images wearing a Google Glass headset.
As part of the presentation of interactive glasses Google Glass Brin jumped with a parachute
Sergey Brin's parachute jump was recorded using Google Glass
The smart glasses project in 2013 entered the podium.
During the show of the collection of Diane von Furstenberg, online filming was carried out, available for viewing in the designer's profile on Google+
Mr. Brin cited time-lapse as his favorite feature of the smart glasses. Now, when playing with children, he did not break away to capture them, but simply turned on the time-lapse mode.
But Google Glass never became available to the mass user. Already in 2013-2014, there were bans on wearing augmented reality glasses: being close to wearers of glasses caused discomfort ... Not only privacy activists, but also ordinary people did not like to be in surveillance mode. The owners of smart glasses were called "cyborgs", in a number of establishments there were signs prohibiting their wearing.
Brin's merit in accepting innovations, new tools carry new responsibilities, not only technical, but also ethical problems have to be solved. "Smart glasses" are now positioned as a working tool for those professionals who have their hands full during work: workers in the medical industry, CNC machine operators, etc.
Brin's New Case: Ghost Cars
After smart glasses, Sergey took up the project of cars without a driver. Among the creators of the "Googlemobile" are the head of the Stanford AI Lab, Sebastian Thrun, and a number of Google engineers. In December 2016, the project was spun off as a separate company, Waymo, which is part of Alphabet's parent company.
Google self-driving car betas roam the streets of San Francisco
Personal life of Sergey Brin
Status "married man"
Brin met his future wife Ann Wojcicki at Stanford. The girl became a worthy couple of an ambitious genius: smart and athletic, she received a degree in biotechnology from Yale (1996), played on the college hockey team, skated and was fond of yoga. In addition, the girl was from the "right family", which pleased Brin's parents: Ann's maternal great-grandfather was a rabbi in Russia, and moved to the States in the 1920s. In 2006, Ann founded the biotechnology firm 23andMe.
Their wedding took place on a beach washed by the Caribbean Sea.
The wedding ceremony of Sergey Brin and Ann Wojcicki took place in the Bahamas in May 2007
The bride and groom got to the beach where the wedding ceremony took place by swimming. Their outfits were traditional only in color, but not in form: Ann went down the aisle in a white bathing suit, Sergey in black swimming trunks.
The couple settled in Los Altos and with their charitable activities have earned comparison with another famous couple - Bill and Melinda Gates. Buying up real estate, the Brins rent it out for children's cafes and bookstores at below market prices. Thanks to their efforts, Los Altos now offers a wide range of services for children, including a children's science center.
Ann and Sergey Brin
In December 2008, the couple had a son, Benji, and at the end of 2011, a daughter, Chloe.
The couple gave their children the surname "Wojin" - a derivative of the names of Brin and Wojicki
A person close to their circle admits that sometimes in family life Brin “turned on the star”: how is it that he, the head of a large company, when he comes home, has to change the baby's diapers? However, this was not the reason for their separation. Since 2013, according to Bloomsbury, the couple has been living separately, although they have not publicized the breakup. Later, Ann admitted that she felt embarrassed when acquaintances conveyed their regards to Brin through her. The couple filed an official divorce on 05/01/2015 in the court of Santa Clara, California.
The wife and children stayed in the Los Altos house for $ 7 million, and Brin moved to a second house in the same Los Altos to be closer to the children and raise them together with his ex-wife.
The Google Glass project: look into both eyes
The reason for the Brins' divorce was Sergei's affair with his subordinate Amanda Rosenberg (born circa 1987), a marketing manager. The couple violated the boundaries of service relations while working on the Google Glass augmented reality glasses project.
Sergey Brin with his wife Ann wearing smart glasses that ruined their marriage
Brin's wife tried to help her husband work on Google Glass. Amanda frequented the Breen house under the pretense of discussing the smart glasses promotion with Ann. At that time, Amanda was in a relationship with the vice president of product management for Android Hugo Barra, but Brin seemed to her more promising. According to colleagues, Amanda initially strove for publicity rather than for work duties.
Amanda Rosenberg, an Englishwoman with Jewish and Chinese roots, who ruined the marriage of Sergey Brin
The history of this office romance is by no means new, the world of technology is the world of men, and hunters for respectable suitors are not stopped by the fact that some of them are married. “You can get a Stanford diploma, which means you can get a job at Google, which means you can find a husband,” is the philosophy of young “hunters” for suitors.
Sergey Brin and Amanda Rosenberg, the girl for whom the co-founder of Google left the family
Brin and Rosenberg continued to work together at Google X, which caused dissatisfaction with colleagues. As a result, the affair between Rosenberg and Brin ended, but he never returned to the family.
Start from scratch
After the divorce, Ann Wojcicki's boyfriend becomes Alex Rodriguez (aka A-Rod) - a professional American baseball player who has several love stories with celebrities behind him: Rodriguez dated (2008), Kate Hudson (2009) and Cameron Diaz (2010-2011) .
The first joint exit of ex-wife Sergey Brin with boyfriend-baseball player Alex Rodriguez in 2016
Brin is currently having an affair with ClearAccessIP founder Nicole Shanahan. Perhaps she will become the second wife of the co-founder of Google.
Sergey Brin with new lover Nicole Shanahan
Sergey Brin and Nicole Shanahan at the Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA on November 4, 2018
Brin's Possible Deadly Diagnosis: "Patient Rather Alive"
When Google invested $3.9 million in 23andMe, a biotech company founded by Brin's wife, in 2007, Sergey had no idea he was investing in his health.
Genetic testing technologies make it possible to identify a tendency to certain diseases. A DNA study of Sergey Brin showed his predisposition to Parkinson's disease (gradual death of nerve cells). Unlike, who strictly guarded news about his health, Brin started a blog and in 2008 publicly announced the results of testing at the Google Zeitgeist conference.
Knowing about a possible future diagnosis of Parkinson's disease Brin calls "luck"
The 10,000 Parkinson's patients researched by 23andMe will help reduce Brin's risk of developing the disease by approximately 10%.
Charity
Brin finances areas close to him. This is what many billionaires do, the writer, for example, sponsors single mothers and centers for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. The philanthropic index of Sergey Brin is 4 out of 5 points. Here is a partial list of Brin's philanthropic activities:
- sponsors the Breakthrough Prizes science award. It's kind of the "Oscars of Science" where tech millionaires give prizes to scientific geniuses. The amount of the prize exceeds the value of the Nobel Prize and is more than $1 million
- together with his parents contributed $1.5 million to the University of Maryland for the study of Parkinson's disease
- Donated $7 million to Parkinson's Institute
- $ 150 million supported the Michael J. Fox Foundation, a charitable organization that collects funds for such research
Brin is investing with Page in energy projects to make clean energy cheaper than non-renewable energy.
In 2004, business partners created the charity Google.org, whose fund, replenished from personal funds and private resources, is directed to the benefit of civilization.
They also introduced the "law of one percent": every year, 1% of the company's share capital and income, as well as 1% of the working time of employees, is directed to creating a safer and more resilient world.
Billionaire in a T-shirt
A black T-shirt and dark jeans, a quick and playful conversation - the image of a “simple guy” really suits Sergey.
Sergey Brin not only runs, but also gives interviews in funny Vibram FiveFingers sneakers
Humorist
Brin is inherent in the humor that he demonstrates to the public: “sorry, a message came from the Nigerian prince, he is asking for 10 million. I do not ignore such requests, because this is how we collected on Google.”
