In the summer of 1995, Sergey Brin was giving a tour of Stanford University to prospective students when a young engineering graduate from Michigan named Larry Page ended up in his group. They found each other obnoxious at first. Nobody could have guessed they would one day change the way the entire world finds information. Larry Page was born in Michigan in 1973, the son of two computer experts.
Sergey Brin was born the same year in Moscow, Russia, and emigrated to the United States with his family at age six to escape Jewish persecution. His mother was a NASA scientist, his father a math professor, and young Sergey was a math prodigy. Both ended up in Stanford’s computer science PhD program, where their paths crossed. In 1996, they began a research project called BackRub.
Their idea was radical: instead of simply matching keywords, they would rank websites based on the quality and number of links pointing to them. A site linked to by important sources would rank higher. It was a simple concept that demanded enormous computing power and extremely complex mathematics. Brin, the prodigy, handled the math.
Page drove the vision. They soon developed the PageRank algorithm, which would become the foundation of everything that followed. They needed a name as grand as their vision. They thought of the mathematical term “googol,” the number one followed by one hundred zeros.
But that domain was already taken, so they played with the spelling and registered “Google” as a website on September 15, 1997. Their dorm room became an office. The project was a hit on campus, but neither man was sure he wanted to leave academia. Page’s father had died during his first year at Stanford, and he saw finishing his PhD as a tribute to him.
Brin was also reluctant to abandon the program. But Brin’s advisor told him, “Look, if this Google thing pans out, then great. If not, you can return to graduate school and finish your thesis. ” Brin chuckled and said, “Yeah, okay, why not?
I’ll just give it a try. ” They both dropped out of Stanford to focus on the new venture. Investors were skeptical. At the time, there were already five major search engines.
One investor, Ram Shriram, wondered why the world would need a sixth. For a while, nobody was buying into Google. In 1998, they received their first check for $100,000. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, later invested as well, and together they raised $1 million.
Google was incorporated on September 4, 1998. growth was extraordinary, but the young founders still needed an experienced leader. They hired Eric Schmidt as chairman and CEO, taking over from Page. They chose him from over fifty candidates partly because he had attended Burning Man, the famous festival in the Nevada desert that both founders loved.
Page became president of products, and Brin became president of technology. Schmidt became the public face of the company. Google kept evolving. In 2002, internet giant Yahoo tried to buy Google for a massive sum, but Brin and Page refused.
They no longer had any desire to sell. In 2003, they moved into a large complex in Mountain View called the Googleplex, complete with swimming pools, volleyball courts, laundry services, child care, and free food. The informal company motto became “Don’t be evil. ” That same year, they launched Google AdSense, an advertising program that would become one of the largest ad networks in the world.
By then, Google was already the go-to search engine everywhere. People used it for everything. One woman admitted, “The person I’m seeing—before we went on our first date, I Googled him, just because I didn’t know him very well and wanted to see if he was a criminal. ”
But success brings enemies.
Microsoft had been seen as the evil empire, and now it was Google’s turn. Their own slogan, “Don’t be evil,” was used against them. Then came a new challenger: Mark Zuckerberg. The rise of Facebook blindsided Google.
In 2010, Facebook passed Google as the most visited U. S. site, with membership worldwide doubling to half a billion users. People no longer used the internet only to find information; they used it to connect with friends and organize their lives.
Google’s own attempts at social networking had failed. Page and Brin were aware that user habits were shifting, and they were determined to adapt. Google acquired Motorola, its biggest purchase at the time. That same year, after ten years as CEO, Eric Schmidt stepped down, tweeting, “Day-to-day adult supervision no longer needed.
” Larry Page took over. But Page’s leadership was soon compromised by his health. In 2012, vocal cord paralysis made it very difficult for him to speak, especially to large crowds. As his voice grew quieter and hoarser, he began skipping calls and eventually eliminated all public speaking events.
As Page and Brin stepped back, Google faced increasing scrutiny. In 2017, it was fined $2. 7 billion for violating antitrust laws and manipulating search results. Still, that same year, Google took Apple’s spot as the most valuable brand in the world.
Then came December 2019—the end of an era. Amid investigations and mounting employee unrest, both Page and Brin completely stepped away from the company. Sundar Pichai became CEO of both Google and its parent company, Alphabet. It wasn’t a shock, as they had already pulled back from day-to-day operations.
Page largely disappeared from public view. Both men had always been extremely private, possibly two of the most mysterious tech leaders of their generation. In their personal lives, both had married within a year of each other. Page married research scientist Lucinda Southworth in 2007 on Richard Branson’s private island, with Branson serving as best man.
Brin married biotech specialist Anne Wojcicki, whose sister’s garage they had used as their first office. The couple wed in the Bahamas, with Larry Page standing up for Brin. Both men had two children. In early 2014, headlines revealed Brin’s affair with Google Glass marketing manager Amanda Rosenberg.
He and Anne divorced in 2015. Brin later married attorney Nicole Shanahan in 2018. Looking back, the impact is enormous. Google now has countless apps and tools people use daily.
Google. org has contributed over $100 million to organizations working on everything from clean energy to global health. In fourteen years, Google grew from a startup to a technology giant. Even when it suffered setbacks, it always managed to work its way back to the top.
The founders changed the way people get information and allowed knowledge to expand in unprecedented ways. They grew a small startup from a garage into one of the biggest multinational tech companies in the world. They don’t have the fan base of Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, nor the hatred directed at Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg. Most people don’t know who they are, and they aren’t widely credited for revolutionizing the internet.
In 1999, Page and Brin tried to sell the company to Yahoo for $1 million. Yahoo turned them down. Today, Google is worth nearly a trillion dollars.
This is the story of how Sergey Brin and Larry Page built the search giant the world simply can’t live without.
