Computing
Sergey Brin
Co-founder of Google
Born 1973
Photo: Steve Jurvetson · CC BY 2.0
«Obviously everyone wants to be successful, but I want to be looked back on as being very innovative, very trusted and ethical.»
Sergey Brin, born in Moscow and brought to the United States at six, co-founded Google with Larry Page in 1998 and later ran Google X, the laboratory behind Waymo's self-driving cars and Google Glass. He is among the richest people in the world.
Key achievements
- Co-founded Google in 1998 with Larry Page
- Led Google X, the company's moonshot laboratory
Universities
Stanford, California (next to Palo Alto)
MS in computer science, 1995, on a National Science Foundation fellowship; began a PhD, met Larry Page, and went on indefinite leave in 1998.
Facts
- He met Larry Page in 1995 when, as a second-year graduate student, he was assigned to show prospective students around Stanford; the two argued about almost everything.
- His family emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1979 because of the antisemitism his father, a mathematician, faced in his career.
- He finished his Maryland degree in mathematics and computer science at 19 and won a National Science Foundation fellowship to Stanford.
- The first version of Google went live on Stanford's website in August 1996; in 1999 the founders offered to sell the company to Excite for one million dollars and were turned down.
Photographs
Photographs come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences; the author and licence are shown on each image.