The Sergey Brin Story: How The Google Co-Founder Became A Multibillionaire
Have you ever wondered how some people become some of the richest people in the world? People earn a lot of money by doing a lot of things as there is no generic way to make millions. A lot of people have made it by inheriting wealth, some by doing the barest minimum and a lot more have made it by working their asses off. While hard work is not all there is to making money it may be a determinant in some cases. Today, we look at an exceptional character who has influenced a lot of people to never quit even when the future is bleak and they are weak. Today, we peek into the world of billionaires to examine Sergey Brin and find out how he was able to make billions doing what he knows how to do best.
Born on the 21st day of August 1973 to Jewish parents from Moscow, Russia, Sergey Brin moved to the United States with his parents, Michael and Eugenia Brin at the young age of six. His father was a math professor while his mother was a NASA researcher. Sergey attended Paint Branch Montessori School in Maryland for his elementary studies before proceeding to Eleanor Roosevelt High School.
He would later gain admission into the University of Maryland to study computer science and mathematics, from where he graduated with a bachelor of science degree. After his first degree, the National Science Foundation through a graduate fellowship offered him an opportunity to pursue his M.S degree in Computer Science at Stanford University, years later, Sergey Brin went back to Stanford University to obtain his Ph.D. in Computer Science. Now that we know who Sergey Brin is, let us examine what he did to become a multibillionaire.
After obtaining his first degree, Sergey Brin first interned with Wolfram researchers before he went on to obtain his M.S degree at Stanford University. While obtaining his M.S, Sergey Brin met Larry Page, a researcher, and little did he know that that was someone he’d do great things with. Sergey Brin’s intention was to develop data mining systems whereas Larry Page’s focus was on expanding “the concept of inferring the importance of a research paper from its citations in other papers”. This spurred a paper titled “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine”, a paper that was written through their collaborative effort and ideas. Thus, after so much back and forth, experimenting, and hypothesizing, Sergey Brin and Larry Page founded Google together in the year 1998, in Menlo Park, California, U.S. It is important to note that Google would have ended up being just a search engine Sergey and Larry called “BackRub” had it not been for the crucial contribution of Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Suns Microsystems who wrote them a check of $100,000 to build their company.
By 2001, Google had gone public and Sergey Brin stepped down as chairman of Google to become president of technology and products alongside his co-founder Larry Page in 2004, Orkut was developed and launched as a social networking website and Google desktop search. Still, in 2004, the first Public Offering was held and this made Sergey Brin an instant millionaire. The following year, Sergey Brin experienced exponential growth in Google as Google Maps, Blogger Mobile, and Google Reader were developed while acquiring YouTube. In 2011, Sergey Brin, while being head of technology, became director of special projects. He is also the director of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, YouTube, and other businesses he and his business partner Larry Page have acquired over the years.
Sergey Brin owes his billionaire status to his stake in Alphabet, the parent company of Google, YouTube, and other businesses. He owns Class C and Class B shares both of which amount to 6% of the entire business. From a recent filing, it was discovered that this self-made billionaire’s Class B shares are valued using the market’s current Class A shares price and the shares do not trade. His Class C shares are publicly traded and he owns about 19 million of those. Since the 2004 Public Offering, Sergey Brin has traded shares worth over $10 billion, his cash investments are valued based on these shares' sales, market performances, and taxes. Currently, he owns shares in Tesla, world famous electric car maker, Occam’s Razor, and also in a genome mapping company founded by his ex-wife, 23andMe.
Sergey Brin founded his family foundation which he named after himself; The Sergey Brin Family Foundation which caters to left-of-center causes and holds about $1.4 billion in assets. He gives an annual grant of $50 million to his foundation and organizations that have benefited includes; the Tides Foundation, Girls Who Code, Colour of Change, Progressive Now Colorado, and Proteus Fund. He has also made donations to President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign and other democratic causes like the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Sergey Brin was married to Anne Wojcicki with whom he had two kids. They got divorced in 2015 and he remarried Nicole Shanahan, had a daughter and got divorced in 2021 following speculations that Nicole had an affair with Elon Musk.
In 2002, Sergey Brin won the MIT Technology Review TR100 alongside his co-founder and in the following year, he won an honorary MBA from IE Business School. In 2004, he won the EY entrepreneur of the year alongside his co-founder. He also won the Marconi Foundation Prize which is the highest award in engineering, in 2009, he was named one of the most powerful persons in the world by Forbes and later that year, he got inducted into the National Academy of Engineering. Currently, according to Forbes, Sergey Brin is the 8th richest person in the world considering his net worth of $87.2 billion.
Sources: Wealthy Gorilla, Bloomberg, Entrepreneur, Forbes
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