Brin, Sergey (1973-…), a Russian-born American computer scientist, cofounded the pioneering internet company Google Inc. Brin helped develop Google’s revolutionary internet search engine, working along with the company’s other cofounder, Larry Page. Search engines identify relevant websites and information based on keywords entered by a user (see Search engine ). Profits from Google’s search engine and other services helped make Brin one of the wealthiest people in the world.
Sergey Mikhailovich Brin was born in Moscow on Aug. 21, 1973. His family immigrated to the United States when he was 6 years old. Brin met Page in Stanford University’s Ph.D. degree program in computer science. In 1996, the two men created a search engine called BackRub. Unlike other search engines at the time, BackRub counted links leading to each web page it found. Page and Brin reasoned that pages with many incoming links were probably the most important and most relevant. BackRub gathered an enormous amount of data from the internet, eventually overwhelming Stanford’s computer system.
Brin and Page launched Google, based on BackRub, in 1998. They originally used their friend’s garage as an office. Google quickly became the world’s most popular search engine. The website earned money by selling ads that appeared alongside search results. From 2001 to 2011, Brin served as co-president at Google and led technology-development strategy. Beginning in 2011, Brin directed Google’s special projects. In 2015, Brin became the president of a new holding company, called Alphabet, that includes Google along with other business endeavors. He stepped down as president in 2019 but remained a member of Alphabet’s board of directors. Brin has also invested in philanthropy (charity), renewable energy projects, and Tesla Motors, an electric car manufacturer.
See also Google Inc. ; Page, Larry .
