Page, Larry (1973-…), an American computer scientist, cofounded the pioneering internet company Google Inc. Page helped develop Google’s revolutionary internet search engine, working along with the company’s other cofounder, Sergey Brin. 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 Page one of the wealthiest people in the world.
Lawrence Page was born in East Lansing, Michigan, on March 26, 1973. Both of his parents were computer scientists. Page met Brin 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 alongside search results. From 2001 to 2011, Page served as co-president at Google and led product-development strategy. In 2011, Page became Google’s chief executive officer (CEO). In 2015, Page announced that Google would become part of a new holding company called Alphabet with a broader focus, and that he would serve as Alphabet’s CEO. He stepped down as CEO in late 2019 but remained a member of Alphabet’s board of directors. Page has invested in philanthropy (charity), renewable energy projects, and Tesla Motors, an electric car manufacturer.
See also Brin, Sergey ; Google Inc.
