Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google - Inventor, engineer and programmer

Being part of the top management of the company that maybe knows more about us that we ourselves do, Sergey Brin is the ninth most powerful man in the world. When you say 'Google', immediate associations are numerous - from 'know-it-all search engine' to the company with the most creative working space, tests for employees and assignments. It is today hard to imagine life without this popular browser, and we are to thank Sergey Brin and Larry Page for making our everyday living so easier.

Internet entrepreneur and computer scientist Sergey Brin was born in Moscow on August 21st, 1973. His family emigrated to the United States of America in a bid to escape the exile of the Jew in 1979. Upon majoring in Mathematics and Computer Science at Maryland University, Brin enrolled in Stanford University where he met Larry Page. They both earned a PhD in computer science.

Brin and Page later created a pilot project focusing on a browser that ranks internet search results by their popularity, which is based on a conclusion that the most popular result should also be the most useful one. It all started with a research for their joint project, which was part of their final thesis at the faculty, and then the two of them turned Page's dorm room into a mechanical laboratory: they used parts of cheap computers to make a device to connect their newly born browser to the network of the Stanford student dormitory. When Page's room was filled up, these two made an office and a programming center out of Brin's room, which they then used to test their new web-designed browser. Google started developing at a fast pace, which resulted in the overload of Stanford's computer infrastructure.

The browser was named 'Google' after the mathematical term 'googol', which is the number starting with the digit 1 followed by 100 zeros. This was supposed to symbolyze their mission to organize the unlimited quantity of information available on the web. Ever since it was launched in 1998, Google has been the world's most popular browser.

And how these two guys used their student invention to become billionaires? After starting their business in a garage, Brin and Page collected first USD 1,000,000 from the family, friends and other investors to move the company to the heard of Silicon Valley in California. Google had its firsst initial public offering (IPO) in August 2004, which made Brin and Page billionaires. This browser quickly become the most popular with 5.9 billion searches a day in 2013.

Nine years ago Google bought the shares of the most popular video sharing site - YouTube, for USD 1.65 billion. The company also launched a new social media network - Google+. Google continues to develop various services that we use every day, and one of the most universal ones is the file sharing platform Google Drive. Thanks to this platform, it is possible to write a report with a colleague from Japan in real time.

Brin came in at No. 20 on the Forbes annual list of richest people on the planet, ranking 15th among American billionaires. His personal net worth is currently at USD 29.7 billion, making him the ninth most powerful man in the world, shoulder-to-shoulder with political and religious leaders.

Sergey Brin works as director on Google's special projects and continues to share day-to-day obligations within the company with Google CEO Larry Page and Executive President Eric Schmid. Brin runs the Google X division that focuses on risky projects such as smart lens, levitating wind generators and Google goggles. In early 2015 Google announced it would stop producing the current version of these goggles.

Google today employs about 40,000 people in 40 countries around the world. It still holds the biggest share of the web browsing market - 65%.

Brin is divorced and has two children.

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Sergey Brin

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