Sergey Brin is a scientist, programmer, mathematician; at the age of six he moved with his parents from the USSR to the USA. During his student years, together with Larry Page, he founded the largest search engine, Google. In 2016, according to Forbes magazine, he was ranked 13th among the richest people in the world, his fortune is estimated at $39.8 billion.

 

For reference:

  • Full name: Brin Sergey Mikhailovich
  • Was born: in 1973 on August 21 in Moscow
  • Education: University of Maryland (bachelor's degree), Stanford University (master's degree).
  • Starting a business: 1998
  • Type of activity at start: creation of Google search engine
  • What he is doing now: President of Alphabet Inc., into which Google Inc. was transformed
  • State:$39.8 billion in 2016 according to Forbes magazine.

Sergey Brin is a scientist, a genius, a “guy,” the richest immigrant in America who has built a multibillion-dollar business. He wears augmented reality glasses and builds an airship. He is open, direct and bold. During his student years, he could burst into the professor’s office for the sake of an interesting conversation.

The biography of an entrepreneur is closely related to his business. He founded Google from scratch, which in 2016 was in second place on the list of the world's most valuable companies by market capitalization. Where did it all begin?

Background to success

Everyone in the family of Google founder Sergey Brin was a scientist. Great-grandmother was a microbiologist, grandmother was a philologist, grandfather was a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences. His father taught mathematical disciplines at the Energy Institute, Sergei’s mother, Evgenia Brin, worked at a research institute.

The Breens are hereditary Jews. The family lived in Moscow. They encountered clear manifestations of anti-Semitism in the USSR. Mikhail Brin, the father of the future billionaire, was not allowed to go abroad for scientific conferences, were not allowed to study in graduate school.

In 1979, father, mother and six-year-old Sergei immigrated to the United States. After moving to the states, Mikhail Brin was invited to work at the University of Maryland, and Evgenia got a job as a specialist at the Space Flight Center. Goddard at NASA.

When Mikhail Brin was asked what made him move with his wife and little son to a foreign country, he answered philosophically that “a person’s love for his homeland is not always mutual.”

Living and studying in the states

IN school years Sergei mastered programming and even then decided that he wanted to connect his life with mathematics in relation to the field of computer technology.

The development of the personality of the future billionaire was greatly influenced by his father’s approach to training and education. It is as follows: in a situation where 7 awards out of 10 possible are received, the father always asks the question “what about the other three?” Sergey always asks himself the same question in life. He does not sit still, but always strives for more.

In 1990, Sergei entered the university where his father worked, at the Faculty of Mathematics, majoring in mathematics and computer systems. He received his bachelor's degree in three years instead of four. Received a diploma with honors and a prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. This allowed Brin to choose any university and continue there higher education.

Sergei chose Stanford University. Having a bachelor's degree, he immediately entered doctoral studies. Here he gained invaluable practical experience working on large projects and conducting research. Developed technologies for collecting data from large amounts of unstructured information. IN free time Sergei was involved in swimming and gymnastics, and actively participated in the life of the university. But most of his time was devoted to programming and mathematics.

In an interview, Brin says that he knows how difficult it was for his parents in the USSR, and is very grateful to them for taking him to the USA. He is also credited with saying that “Russia is Nigeria in the snow.” Although Sergei himself claims that he does not remember saying this.

Significant acquaintance

At Stanford in the fall of 1995, Sergey Brin met Lawrence Edward (Larry) Page, the future co-founder of Google. Already at the first meeting, a heated argument ensued between the guys, each trying to prove their point of view. At first, the guys seemed to each other to be very unpleasant types.

However, in the process of communication, the young people discovered a lot of common interests, became friends and eventually began joint scientific work - a doctoral dissertation, which was devoted to searching for data on the Internet through the analysis of hyperlinks. On campus, the tandem of talented programmers was called “LarrySergey.”

Google success story

Collaboration grew into the creation of a search system. By early 1997, a primitive search engine called BackRub had been developed. It processed links to web pages. Its logo was a black and white image of the palm of Larry's left hand, made using a scanner. Later, friends renamed it Google.

This is interesting: The name Google comes from the mathematical term googol, which means a number consisting of one followed by hundreds of zeros. The comrades spelled the word incorrectly. When they found out about this, the name Google.com had already been registered. The name symbolized Brin and Page's grandiose intentions.

The work algorithm was technically different from other existing search engines: the system was focused not on verbal queries, but on the number of links. The more links to a site, the more popular it is. In addition, the significance of the sites on which these links are located was taken into account. This link ranking algorithm is given the name PageRank.

Brin did not have the funds to pay for the services of a professional designer, so he designed the search engine simply and uncomplicatedly: multi-colored letters on a white background. As it turned out, he was right.

Initially, the search engine was located on the Stanford University server and was used only by students. By 1998, about 10 thousand people were already using the system, this created a heavy load on the server, which was equal to half of all university traffic. In addition, the search robot could access restricted pages. The newly minted entrepreneurs were asked to release the server.

The comrades offered their developments to existing Internet companies and venture investors, but received refusals. And the head of one of the most recognizable brands on the Internet in the 90s - Excite - told Sergei and Larry that “search engines have no prospects and it is impossible to make money on them.” Now Google is thriving, and Excite has lost its popularity and gone bankrupt.

The first investor to believe in the Google search engine was the co-founder of Sun Microsystems, which produced software and hardware. His name is Andy Bechtolsheim. The investor liked that while other companies were spending money on advertising, Page and Brin planned to make the system popular through positive reviews and recommendations from users, creating a truly useful service. Bechtolsheim wrote a check for $100,000 for a company that did not yet exist.

By 1998, the enterprising friends managed to raise a total of $1 million. That same year, they registered a company whose headquarters were located in a garage in the Californian city of Menlow Park.

The comrades rented the garage from the sister of Brin’s future wife, Anna Wojcicki. Sergey and Anna were married from 2007 to 2013, after which they divorced. They have two children: a son and a daughter.

The search engine was included in the top 100 Internet sites for its high search accuracy, according to the world-famous British video game magazine PlayStation Magazine.

In 2004, Google Inc listed its shares on the stock exchange at a price of $85, and within a year the price increased by 273% to $317.8.

The number of requests was already in the billions per day. Google has received the status of the main search engine in the world. Even then, the company's value was estimated at $23 billion. In 2015, its value was estimated at $460 billion. Sergey Brin is actively involved in charity work and plans to spend $20 billion for these purposes.

Quote from Sergey Brin: “Obviously, everyone wants to succeed, but I want to be thought of as a great innovator, a person of high morals, trustworthy, and, ultimately, bringing great change to this world.”

Watch the video interview with Sergey Brin

Company and personal finance

In 2015, it was officially announced that Google Inc would be transformed into Alphabet Inc, a management company that combines many assets. Among them:

  • Google search engine;
  • Calico Life Extension Program;
  • smart home developer Nest Labs;
  • Verily Health Research Center;
  • system integrator of broadband Internet access Fiber;
  • developer of self-organizing software X;
  • investment company Google Capital and venture capital company Google Venture.

In 2017, the European Commission fined Alphabet Inc $2.42 billion for abusing its dominant position in the search engine market. This amount is a record of all fines in antimonopoly cases.

The founder of Google does not disdain traveling on the subway, prefers a simple style of clothing, despite his status and financial condition, see table 1.

*as of June 2017 according to Forbes

In the spring of 2017, a report appeared in the press that Sergey Brin was working on the construction of a huge airship. What this is: a new business project or a whim of a billionaire has not yet been announced.

The Google story begins in 1995 at Stanford University. Larry Page was considering Stanford for grad school and Sergey Brin, a student there, was assigned to show him around.

By some accounts, they disagreed about nearly everything during that first meeting, but by the following year they struck a partnership. Working from their dorm rooms, they built a search engine that used links to determine the importance of individual pages on the World Wide Web. They called this search engine Backrub.

Soon after, Backrub was renamed by Google (phew). The name was a play on the mathematical expression for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros and aptly reflected Larry and Sergey"s mission “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Over the next few years, Google caught the attention of not only the academic community, but Silicon Valley investors as well. In August 1998, Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote Larry and Sergey a check for $100,000, and Google Inc. was officially born. With this investment, the newly incorporated team made the upgrade from the dorms to their first office: a garage in suburban Menlo Park, California, owned by Susan Wojcicki (employee #16 and now CEO of YouTube). Clunky desktop computers, a ping pong table, and bright blue carpet set the scene for those early days and late nights. (The tradition of keeping things continues to this day.)

Even in the beginning, things were unconventional: from Google’s initial server (made of Lego) to the first “Doodle” in 1998: a stick figure in the logo announcing to site visitors that the entire staff was playing hooky at the Burning Man Festival. “Don't be evil” and “ The ten things we know to be true” captured the spirit of our intentionally unconventional methods. In the years that followed, the company expanded rapidly - hiring engineers, building a sales team, and introducing the first company dog, Yoshka. Google outgrew the garage and eventually moved to its current headquarters (a.k.a. “The Googleplex”) in Mountain View, California. The spirit of doing things differently made the move. So did Yoshka.

The relentless search for better answers continues to be at the core of everything we do. Today, with more than 60,000 employees in 50 different countries, Google makes hundreds of products used by billions of people across the globe, from YouTube and Android to Smartbox and, of course, Google Search. Although we’ve ditched the Lego servers and added just a few more company dogs, our passion for building technology for everyone has stayed with us - from the dorm room, to the garage, and to this very day.

Sergey Brin is the man who, together with Larry Page, created the world's most popular search engine, Google.

early years

Internet entrepreneur and computer specialist Sergei Mikhailovich Brin was born on August 21, 1973 in Russia, Moscow. In 1971, Brin, who came from a family of Soviet mathematicians and economists, escaping persecution of Jews, emigrated with his family to the United States. After receiving a degree in mathematics and computer engineering from the University of Maryland at College Park, Brin attended Stanford University, where he met Larry Page. At that time, both were defending their doctoral dissertations in computer technology.

Google

At Stanford University, Brin and Page are starting a research project to create a search engine that sorts information by the popularity of the pages being searched, 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 “googol”, 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 Internet.

Having collected start-up capital of one million US dollars with the help of family, friends and investors, in 1998 the friends founded their own company. Headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley in California, in August 2004, Brin and Page introduced Google to the public, which made its creators billionaires. Since then, Google has become the most popular search engine in the world, receiving, according to 2013 data, 5.9 billion requests per day.

The birth of YouTube

In 2006, Google acquired YouTube, the most popular website for broadcasting user-generated videos, for $1.65 billion.

In March 2013, Brin was ranked 21st on the Forbes list of billionaires and 14th on the list of American billionaires. According to Forbes.com as of September 2013, Brin's network is valued at $24.4 billion. Brin currently holds the position of Director of Special Projects at Google and continues to provide operational management of the company along with Page. general director Google, and Eric Schmidt, the company's chief executive.

Quotes

“Big problems are much easier to solve than small ones.”

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and economics. In the latest Forbes magazine ranking, published in March 2017, Sergey Brin ranks 13th with a fortune of $39.8 billion. Photo: Steve Jurvetson

Sergey Brin was born on August 21, 1973 in Moscow. Sergei's father, Mikhail, was a doctor of mathematical sciences, and his mother, Evgenia, was an engineer.

The parents of the future businessman had Jewish roots. At the end of the 70s, the USSR authorities began to release Jewish families abroad. Mikhail took advantage of this opportunity and took his family to the USA in 1979. Already in America, Sergei turned 6 years old. Soviet mathematicians were highly valued in the world, so Sergei’s father quickly found a job at the University of Maryland, and his mother became a scientist at NASA. Childhood In the USA, Sergei went to primary school State of Maryland. He notes that some of the foundations for his future success were laid here.

School course There was little mathematics, so the boy received additional education in this area at home from his father. Parents supported their son's passion for computer technology and mathematics.

Interesting fact!

Despite the high cost and low prevalence of personal computers in the early 80s, Sergey Brin received his first PC (Commodore 64) for his birthday at the age of 9. Computers became the boy's main hobby.

In 1990, Sergei graduated from school and entered the mathematics department of the University of Maryland, where his father taught. He completed his studies ahead of schedule with honors in the field of computer systems and mathematics. Stanford Brin continued his studies at

prestigious university- a legend in the computer business, co-founder and president of technology at Google Inc., a billionaire, now one of the richest people in America. Brin is a Russian, first named “man of the year” by the Financial Times newspaper, not as an actor, politician or oligarch, but as a mathematician, famous throughout the world for the creation of his own mind - the Google search engine. Many people know that Sergei was born in Moscow, but not everyone is familiar with his biography in more detail.

Success Story, Biography of Sergey Brin

Sergei Mikhailovich Brin was born in Moscow on August 21, 1973 into a Jewish family. His father Mikhail Brin was a mathematician, his mother Evgenia was an engineer. Father Brin recalls that in the USSR he constantly encountered mute anti-Semitism. It’s not that they were driving him away from somewhere - they were just trying not to let him go anywhere. He dreamed of being an astronomer and wanted to study physics at university, but was rejected because Communist Party prohibited Jews from studying in physics departments in order to block their access to the country's nuclear secrets. Then he decided to study mathematics and was able to become a student, despite the fact that entrance exams for Jews were carried out separately, in rooms notoriously known as “gas chambers.” He received his diploma with honors. He later received his doctorate and became a research fellow at the Central Institute of Economics and Mathematics of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

In the late 1970s, Jewish families began to be released from Soviet Union for permanent residence. Mikhail Brin, who had acquaintances abroad from mathematical congresses, and his family in July 1979 found themselves in the forefront of emigrants. Sergei Brin is already six years old on American soil.

Soviet math school was valued, and soon the head of the family got a job as a teacher at the University of Maryland in College Park, and his wife became a scientist at the National Aeronautics and Research Agency outer space(NASA). My grandmother had the hardest time in the family - she was shocked when she had to take the exam driver license to take my grandson to school.

The childhood and youth of Sergei Brin

In America prestigious university attended a Montessori elementary school in Adelphi, Maryland. He now considers studying at this school one of the starting points of his success in life, but admits that sometimes he became bored, because mathematics was taught there so primitively. Additional education the boy received at home. His parents not only helped him maintain his knowledge of the Russian language, but also in every possible way encouraged their son’s early interest in mathematics and computer technology. Suffice it to say that, although in the early 1980s. Having computers at home was still very rare; Sergei received his first computer - a Commodore 64 - from his father as a birthday present when he turned 9 years old. Soon he surprised school teachers by presenting an unusual, at that time, project, prepared on a computer and printed on a printer. Grandmother lamented: “ Serezhenka has only computers in her head. What will happen to him?»

After graduating from school in 1990, prestigious university entered the University of Maryland, where his father taught, in the mathematics department. He received a “red” bachelor’s degree in computer systems and mathematics ahead of schedule and earned a prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship, which allows him to no longer worry about financing his education.

Despite the high cost and low prevalence of personal computers in the early 80s, Sergey Brin received his first PC (Commodore 64) for his birthday at the age of 9. Computers became the boy's main hobby.

Continued educational process already on the West Coast of the USA, in the city of Palo Alto, at the most prestigious “computer university” in the USA, located in California’s Silicon Valley - Stanford University. Some American universities allow students with bachelor's degrees to apply directly to doctoral programs and earn a master's degree while studying. The university gets the opportunity to “harness” talented students in long-term research projects, and students do not have to be distracted by earning money on the side.

Brin liked mathematics, but had no “life plans.” The list of disciplines he chose amazed the professors: dancing, yachting, swimming, gymnastics... As Mikhail Brin recalls, when he asked his son if he was going to enroll in more advanced courses, Sergei replied: “ I already did just that - signed up for advanced swimming».

In addition to his chosen disciplines, while studying at Stanford, Brin almost from the very beginning showed an interest in research in the field of Internet technologies and, in particular, in search engines. He has authored and co-authored a number of papers on methods for extracting information from unstructured sources and searching for information in large collections of texts and scientific data. In addition, he developed software for converting scientific works created using the TeX word processor into HTML format.

Decisive moment in biography of Sergei Brin came in March 1995, when, at a spring meeting of new computer science doctoral candidates, he met a young scientist named Larry Page, the future co-president of Google. Brin was tasked with escorting Page around the university grounds. Initially, the two were not at all enthusiastic about each other and argued furiously, discussing any topic. However, they soon discovered that they were both extremely interested in the problem of extracting information from large amounts of data. Sergei and Larry became friends while developing a new Internet search system for their college dorm. The next important stage of collaboration was the writing of a joint work, “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine,” which is believed to contain the germ of their future grand idea. Among scientific works Stanford University ranks this work 10th in terms of the level of interest it generates.

The friends' scientific work involved searching for information in millions of documents posted on the World Wide Web. " When we looked on the Internet, we didn’t read horoscopes or go to dating sites. We were interested in the search - the information that truly affects people's lives", recalls Brin. Sergei wrote one working search program back in 1994. She automatically “climbed” the Playboy website and looked for new pictures, which she uploaded to the screensaver on Brin’s computer.

Now the guys were interested in searching not just one site, but the entire Web. In January 1996, while preparing to write their doctoral dissertations, Brin and Page began working together above research project, designed to fundamentally improve methods of searching for information on the Internet. Realizing that the most popular data was often the most useful, the young scientists hypothesized that a search engine that analyzed relationships between Web sites and ranked results according to the popularity of particular pages would be more efficient than existing systems. In the search engines in use at the time, the ranking of results typically depended on how many times the searched word appeared on the page.

Convinced that the most important Web pages for data retrieval are those most often linked to by other pages that themselves have high level relevance, Brin and Page decided to prove the correctness of this idea as part of their university research. New system originally called "BackRub" because it checked the number and relevance of backlinks to assess the informational importance of a site. It was later called "PageRank".

Founding and development of Google

Thus, the basis for their creation of their own search engine was the verification of a scientific thesis. The search engine was originally hosted on the Stanford University website under the domain google.stanford.edu. The google.com domain was registered on September 14, 1997.

The origin of the name “Google” itself is interesting, which arose with the “light hand” of investors as a result of a changed spelling of the word “googo”, meaning 10 to the hundredth power (the latter, in turn, was coined by the nine-year-old nephew of the mathematician Edward Kasner). Actually, Brin and Page initially named the company “Googol,” but the investors to whom they presented their project mistakenly wrote a check to Google.

During the first half of 1998, researchers were developing new, promising technology. Page's dorm room at Stanford University served as a data center, Brin's room as a business office. Friends made an attempt to sell their idea, but it was unsuccessful. Then they wrote a business plan and began looking for funds to create their own company. This brought the total initial investment to nearly $1 million. The money came from family and friends as well as investors, including a $100,000 check from Andy Bechtolsheim, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems.

In mid-1998, Brin and Page left their research at Stanford University (although Brin is still officially considered to have taken a leave of absence there). The rest, they say, is history.

Google's history actually began on September 7, 1998, when it was registered as a limited liability company. Its first office was a rented garage located in Menlo Park, California, and the number of employees was initially 4 people. At the same time, the Google search engine answered 10,000 queries per day and, although still listed in the “second tier,” was included by PC Magazine in the list of the 100 best Internet sites and search engines of 1998. The following year, the company moved to new offices in Palo Alto.

The number of satisfied users grew by leaps and bounds, the word “Google” was passed from mouth to mouth. The company needed funds to expand its business. At the same time, Brin and Page did not want to lose control and allow Google to retreat from its core principle of improving the world through opening access to information. And here they again proved that they are capable of finding original solutions not only in the field of new technologies, but also in organizing business. In 1999, they managed to convince two rival venture capital firms - Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers - to fund Google at the same time for a total of $25 million. According to David Wise, co-author of The History of Google, it was a classic “divide and conquer” maneuver. It allowed the company's founders to prevent the possibility of serious influence from either investor, despite the fact that representatives of both companies entered the board of directors.

The partners’ ability to think unconventionally was also evident during the boom in the dot.com industry. While the company's competitors were spending millions on advertising and marketing campaigns in the name of building brands, Google executives worked quietly and intently to improve their search engine and better serve users' needs. Brin believed that Google could rely on the help of users for marketing, since a significant portion of those who use its search engine recommend it to other users. As a result, the collapse of the Internet sector, which ended in the collapse of many young firms, prevented the further steady growth of Google, which reached profitability in 2000. A significant role in this success was played by the emergence of unobtrusive advertising texts located on the periphery of search results (in the first years of the company's operation, advertising was not allowed to accompany search results).

The broad appeal of Google search became apparent when the site received a Webby Award and a People's Choice Award for technical achievement in May 2000. In their speech, Larry and Sergei said only five words: “ We loveyou Google users! The following month, Google officially became the largest search engine in the world, having indexed a billion pages.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page bore the burden of managing the company until the number of its employees exceeded 200 people. In the summer of 2001, they handed over the CEO role to Eric Schmidt, an industry veteran who had been brought in as chairman a few months earlier and had previously served as Novell's acting chairman and CEO. Nevertheless, they continue to firmly “keep their finger on the pulse”, and not a single important decision can be made without their approval. In case of disagreement, the partners discuss the controversial issue in private in detail and develop a common position, which they present to others, speaking as a united front.

Since the early 2000s, the company began to launch special services, in particular, a news service, search for scanned books, demonstration geographical maps, postal service and others. Already in 2003, it was noted that Google Inc. became a leader in the field of search and received unexpected profits for such a young company, and its expansion required the company's office to move to a group of buildings in the Californian town of Mountain View.

Conducting an IPO

In August 2004, Google made an initial public offering on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the symbol (GOOG). Once again abandoning the beaten path, company executives ignored the traditional Wall Street methods of conducting an IPO, preferring a “Dutch” auction. In addition, they managed to anger the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, which was outraged by the fact that the interview was published in Playboy magazine during the so-called “quiet” period (the period before and some time after registration with the SEC, when advertising is prohibited). In any case, the IPO attracted significant interest from investors.

The continued growth of Google's business, which expanded through acquisitions and regularly created new types of Internet services, contributed to the rapid rise of its shares. Having started trading at $85, a little over a year later they cost five times more. When the company conducted its initial offering, Sergey Brin and Larry Page called financier and multi-billionaire Warren Buffett their “role model.” And already in January 2006, Google managed to catch up with Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. at market value. The company recently completed a $4 billion secondary public offering (the number of shares tied to an infinite number of pi numbers), which sparked speculation about possible upcoming acquisitions.

True, experts spoke about the greater stability of Berkshire shares in the long term and about the high cost of Google shares in terms of profit indicators, volume of orders and sales. At the same time, most analysts are predicting continued strong growth for Google shares, citing a growing stream of advertising revenue and the constant addition of new services. Thus, according to Mark Stallman of Caris & Co, if the company expands its services into the areas of online finance and healthcare, its sales volume could reach $100 billion in the future, and the share price could increase significantly.

Google Inc has been constantly expanding its activities. So, in the fall of 2006, Google Inc. bought the YouTube website, a well-known Internet project designed for demonstrating video materials, for $1.6 billion. Since 2007, Google Inc. also started paying Special attention new advertising markets, such as mobile advertising, as well as special projects related to the computerization of healthcare.

Market value of Google Inc. in 2008 was valued at approximately $100 billion.

From the very beginning, the founders of Google thought on a global scale, seeking to use innovative technologies to organize not only the Internet (which in itself is a huge undertaking), but the entire system of information so that it would become accessible to everyone. IN last years Google has undergone dramatic changes, evolving from an Internet search engine into a massive system encompassing news, directories, product and service advertising, maps, email, and more. However, as Brin pointed out, it did not become a media company, but remained a technology company trying to apply technology to media. The company fundamentally works with the entire complex of world knowledge; there are simply different approaches to this issue. Since in modern society people cannot do without information - their career depends on it, self-education, health, etc. - Google's influence on the spiritual state of the world will, according to Brin, become stronger.

Sergey Brin's net worth

Against the backdrop of the powerful growth of shares, the personal fortunes of the creators of Google in the period following the IPO showed a dizzying rise. Since August 2004, Brin and Page have outpaced the growth of income of such “whales” of the computer business as Bill Gates and Paul Allen. In 2004, the partners first appeared on the list of billionaires published by the authoritative Forbes magazine - with $1 billion each. In 2005, Brin's fortune was already estimated by Forbes at $11 billion, and he shared 16th place with Page on the Forbes 400 list of the richest US citizens. In addition, Brin was second among Americans under the age of 40. As of 2011, his personal fortune is $16.7 billion. It should be noted that, starting from the second quarter of 2004, when Google was preparing for its IPO, until now, Brin, Page and Schmidt receive $1 per year as a base wages, fully expecting to receive options and increase the value of shares.

Corporate spirit

Google has been ranked No. 1 on Fortune magazine's list of the 100 Best Employers in the United States for two years now. Staff are provided with free home delivery of food, rooms for nursing mothers, full health insurance and Google stock options for 99% of employees.

The company has a special atmosphere of corporate spirit, supported by its creators. The headquarters in Mountain View, in the heart of Silicon Valley, known as the Googleplex, has many quirks designed to make employees happier. This includes piano music, massage, and a wide selection of sports equipment. This, of course, also includes humor, which has become an integral feature of the image of the young company - from funny drawings on the home page and riddles in public announcements to the famous April Fools' jokes. You can bring your pets to work; hot and cold drinks are freely available in all offices and hallways, free meals, and many other privileges that all company employees can enjoy.

Each Google team member can spend part of their working time (20%) on projects that interest them. A considerable number of services presented by the company, including Gmail, Google News and orkut, appeared as a result of such independent research. And Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products, believes that this 20% of time devoted to free creativity accounts for at least half of the innovations developed at the company.

Corporate events held in the company also help strengthen relationships within the team and set people up to achieve the same goal. This could be training, exciting conversations with employees from different departments in a cafe, collective cross-country cycling, roller hockey, bike racing or frisbee games.

Charity

Brin's company makes gigantic charitable investments. The company's founders said $20 billion would be spent on this goal over 20 years. Brin separates charity from philanthropy - " Many companies want to do good things by giving them money. We want to do charity work so that these projects are part of the company - this is much more effective».

Personal and family life of Sergei Brin

In May 2007, Sergey Brin married Anna Wojcicki. Anna graduated from Yale University in 1996 with a major in biology and founded the company 23andMe (Google invested $3.9 million in the project). Before the wedding, the young couple had known each other for about 8 years. Anna's sister, Susan, at one time rented out a garage to Sergey Brin and his companion Larry Page, where the history of Google began. Subsequently, this garage was bought by Google itself at auction. In December 2008, Brin and Anna had a son, who was named Benji Wojin (the child's name is a combination of his father's and mother's surnames).

In an interview with one of the newspapers, Sergei Brin’s father said that Sergei behaves quite modestly - he still lives in a three-room apartment and does not drive a Mercedes, which would be more befitting his status, but a Toyota Prius with an environmentally friendly hybrid engine. He also likes to go to Katya’s Russian Tea Room in San Francisco and recommend borscht, dumplings and pancakes to his guests.

But, despite his father’s words, we can safely say that Sergei Brin is distinguished by his original, sometimes eccentric actions. For example, in 2005 he bought a Boeing 767, designed to seat 180 people, for personal use. Brin and Page served as producers on the film Broken Arrows, which was directed by Reid Gershbein. In September 2007, Brin and Page offered a $20 million prize to anyone who could build a private spacecraft that could reach the Moon, and in June 2008, Brin himself announced his intention to fly to the International Space Station in 2011 as a space tourist. however, Roscosmos stated that such a trip was impossible.

prestigious university is the author of dozens of publications in leading American academic journals, and also regularly speaks at various national and international scientific, business and technology forums. He often speaks to the press and on television, talking about his views on search technologies and the IT industry as a whole.

Bryn is interested in gymnastics. In addition, like many Google employees, he often roller skates near the office and plays roller hockey during breaks. For clothes, he prefers jeans, sneakers and sports jackets and still buys groceries at Costco and always looks at the price tags.

At the moment, Sergei is a worthy citizen of America, and he has never forgiven Russia, which rejected his parents. During his life, Sergei was in his homeland only 3 times and was not imbued with any nostalgia for it.

Secrets of success of Sergey Brin

When journalists asked Brin’s father what the secret of your son’s success was, he replied, “ Apparently, one of the reasons is this: when we came to America, we were young, we had a different spirit, we were enthusiastic about everything - how to live, how to study, how to work, how to raise children . And that’s exactly how we raised Seryozha. But, most importantly, here, of course, there are much more opportunities for him than there would be in Russia».

This is, first of all, an example of how scientific talent, creative exploration, courage, experimentation and innovative solutions can pave the way to the American dream.

In an interview, Brin said, “ Internet research seems to be very relevant these days, and I am no exception" In fact, what makes Brin and his partner unique is not what they do, but how they approach their business. They strive to “be different” in everything from the famous corporate motto “Don’t be evil,” reminiscent of the hippie philosophy common in the United States in the 1960s, to an unorthodox corporate structure and an unprecedented commitment to philanthropy.

In conclusion, it is worth quoting another statement by Sergei Brin, which, perhaps, briefly and clearly expresses his life credo: “ Obviously, everyone wants to succeed, but I want to be thought of as a great innovator, someone of high morals, trustworthy, and ultimately a big change maker in this world.».

Here he is, a scientist, the founder of the world's largest search engine, a billionaire, a great original, a native of Moscow, Sergei Brin...

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