Sergey Brin facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Sergey Brin
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Brin in 2010
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Sergey Mikhailovich Brin
August 21, 1973 Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
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Sergey Mikhailovich Brin (born August 21, 1973) is an American computer expert and businessman. He is famous for co-founding Google with Larry Page.
Sergey Brin was the president of Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., until December 3, 2019. He and Larry Page are still co-founders, major shareholders, and board members at Alphabet. As of July 2025, Brin is one of the richest people in the world.
Brin moved to the United States from the Soviet Union when he was six years old. He studied mathematics and computer science at the University of Maryland, College Park. Later, he went to Stanford University for his PhD in computer science. There, he met Larry Page, and together they created a new kind of web search engine. This search engine became very popular, and they decided to start Google in a garage in Menlo Park, California.
In December 2023, Sergey Brin returned to a leadership role at Alphabet Inc. to help guide the company into the new era of Artificial General Intelligence, especially after the launch of ChatGPT.
Contents
Early Life and School
Sergey Mikhailovich Brin was born on August 21, 1973, in Moscow, which was then part of the Soviet Union. His parents, Mikhail and Eugenia Brin, were both graduates of Moscow State University. His father was a mathematics professor, and his mother was a researcher at NASA.
The Brin family lived in a small apartment in Moscow. In 1977, his father decided they should move because of unfair treatment towards Jewish people in Russia. They applied to leave in September 1978, and his parents lost their jobs. After waiting for eight months, they finally received permission to leave in May 1979.
The Brin family lived in Vienna and Paris for a short time before moving to the United States. They arrived in the U.S. on October 25, 1979.
Sergey went to Eleanor Roosevelt High School. In September 1990, when he was 19, he started studying at the University of Maryland. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in computer science and mathematics in 1993. In 1993, he also worked as an intern at Wolfram Research, a company that makes software.
Brin then began his advanced studies in computer science at Stanford University. He received his Master of Science degree in computer science in 1995. He later took a break from his PhD studies at Stanford to focus on Google.
Creating the Search Engine
Sergey Brin met Larry Page during an orientation for new students at Stanford. At first, they often disagreed, but they soon became good friends and shared many ideas. Brin was interested in finding ways to organize large amounts of data. Page focused on understanding how important a research paper was based on how often other papers mentioned it.
Together, they wrote a paper called "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine." They developed an idea called the PageRank algorithm. This algorithm helped them figure out how important a webpage was by looking at the links pointing to it. They realized this could make a much better search engine than any that existed at the time.
Their new algorithm looked at how many links connected one webpage to another. It also considered the "rank" or importance of those linking pages. This helped them decide how important a page was. They started building their search engine in Page's dorm room, using parts from inexpensive computers. They connected their new search engine to Stanford's internet network.
After Page's room was full of equipment, they used Brin's dorm room as an office. They tested their new search engine designs on the internet. Their project grew so quickly that it started causing problems for Stanford's computer systems.
Page and Brin used Page's basic HTML skills to create a simple search page. They didn't have a web designer, so it wasn't fancy. They also gathered any computer parts they could find to get enough power for many users to search at once. As their search engine became more popular at Stanford, they needed even more computers to handle all the searches. In August 1996, the first version of Google was available on Stanford's website.
Larry Page remembered that they realized they had a powerful tool. He said, "It gave you a good overall ranking of pages and ordering of follow-up pages." By mid-1998, they understood the huge potential of their project. Page said, "Pretty soon, we had 10,000 searches a day. And we figured, maybe this is really real."
Some people have compared the impact of Page and Brin's work to that of Johannes Gutenberg. Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440, which made it possible to print books much faster. This helped spread knowledge widely. The authors of The Google Story wrote, "Not since Gutenberg... has any new invention empowered individuals, and transformed access to information, as profoundly as Google."
Other Interests
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In June 2008, Brin invested $4.5 million in Space Adventures. This company helps people travel into space.
Brin and Page also own a special Boeing 767–200 airplane and a Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet. They pay a lot of money each year to keep these planes and two other jets owned by Google executives at Moffett Federal Airfield. Their Boeing plane has scientific equipment from NASA to collect data during flights.
Sergey Brin also supports LTA Research & Exploration LLC, a company that builds airships. In October 2023, their large airship, Pathfinder 1, was allowed to start flight testing. It is the biggest airship since the Hindenburg and can fly up to 460 meters high.
Personal Life
Sergey Brin was raised Jewish, but he is not religious.
In May 2007, Brin married Anne Wojcicki, who is a biotech expert and business owner. They had a son in 2008 and a daughter in 2011. In June 2015, Brin and Wojcicki finalized their divorce.
On November 7, 2018, he married Nicole Shanahan, who founded a legal technology company. They have a daughter, born in late 2018. Brin and Shanahan separated in December 2021, and their divorce was finalized in summer 2023.
Brin's mother, Eugenia, has Parkinson's disease. In 2008, he gave money to the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where his mother received treatment. According to Forbes, Brin has donated over $1 billion to help fund research for this disease.
Brin and Wojcicki used to run The Brin Wojcicki Foundation together until 2014. Since then, Brin has used the Sergey Brin Family Foundation for his charitable donations. They have given a lot of money to The Michael J. Fox Foundation. In 2009, they donated $1 million to support the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
Brin also donates to political candidates and groups. He attended the second inauguration of Donald Trump.
Awards and Achievements
Early Awards (2002–2009)
- In 2002, Brin and Larry Page were named among the top 100 innovators under 35 by MIT Technology Review.
- In 2003, they both received an honorary MBA degree from IE Business School. This was for their entrepreneurial spirit and for helping create new businesses.
- In 2004, Brin and Page received the Marconi Prize. They were recognized for inventing something that changed how we find information today.
- In 2004, Brin received the Golden Plate Award from the Academy of Achievement.
- In 2006, Brin was one of the first winners of the Great Immigrants Award from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Recent Awards (2009–Present)
- In November 2009, Forbes magazine named Brin and Page the fifth most powerful people in the world.
- Earlier that year, in February, Brin was welcomed into the National Academy of Engineering. This is a very high honor for engineers. He was chosen for his leadership in developing fast ways to find information on the internet.
- The National Science Foundation has also noted many of his earlier awards. He was a speaker at the World Economic Forum. PC Magazine praised Google in 1998 and gave it a Technical Excellence Award in 1999. In 2000, Google won a Webby Award. In 2001, it won awards for being an outstanding search service and having the best image search engine.
- As of September 2024, Brin is the tenth-richest person in the world.
Film Appearances
| Year | Title | Role |
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| 2013 | The Internship | Himself (cameo) |
See also
In Spanish: Serguéi Brin para niños
