Larry Page is the founder of modern search engines. This greatest achievement is not his only achievement in life. Page did not build his life according to the principle of achieving success at any cost. His main dream was to become an inventor. In 1998, he made his dream come true. Wanting to help all users of the World Wide Web in effective searches, he reached incredible financial heights and has not left the Forbes list for many years now. Photo: Marcin Mycielski, European Parliament, 2009.

Childhood of a computer genius

Larry Page was born on March 26, 1973. His homeland is the USA, Michigan, Lansing. Both of Page's parents are faculty members. Father Carl Victor Page held a professorship, his specialization was computer science. He was among the pioneers in this science. Mother Gloria Page was a high school programming teacher.

It can be said that Larry imbibed with his mother’s milk a love of science and technology, especially with regard to computers and their components.

Interesting fact. At the age of 6, his parents gave their son his first computer, which allowed him to study this technique from an early age. From the first grades, Larry began doing his homework electronically.

After graduating high school,Larry subsequently received a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, and then a Master's degree, from Stanford University.

The birth of an idea

Any innovation starts with an idea. This was the case with Larry Page. Row non-random accidents led to a final pattern that turned a curious boy into a billionaire.

Larry was a good student and a very inquisitive young man. He never had the idea of ​​getting rich, but he always wanted to invent something conceptually new. While studying at the university, Page, by coincidence, met Sergei Brin. The first meeting resulted in a furious argument between two computer fanatics. She left an unpleasant impression on both interlocutors. Subsequently, they argued more than once, finding out that they were very similar in their aspirations. This brought them together, making them not only friends for life, but also partners.

When choosing a topic for his doctoral dissertation, Larry followed the advice of his supervisor and began analyzing mathematical sequences on the Internet. It was this moment that played the most important role in the life of the student and billions of people on the planet.

While conducting research, he found out that requests submitted by users often do not lead to a logical result. Search engines worked on the principle of selecting identical words in the text. Then Larry Page and Sergey Brin decide to create a new search concept - based on the number of views of each individual page. The system had to select the best pages based on the number of views and arrange them in descending order.

The result of research and development was the joint project PageRank. This search engine was introduced at the university and gained instant popularity among students and teachers.

Widespread implementation of PageRank required significant funds, which ambitious students did not have. Then they decided to sell the invention for one million dollars. Luckily for them, a buyer was never found.

Google is born

Larry Page and Sergey Brin decided to keep the idea for themselves, for its further improvement and development. In 1997 they received a patent for PageRank, and in 1998 they founded a company with bright name Google.

Google is the name of a number that in mathematics represents one followed by one hundred zeros. The name was not accidental and had a global context. The creators seemed to be declaring that their idea was so big that it could cover such numerical volumes of requests. After 19 years, it is safe to say that the company has already surpassed its name.

Despite the epochal nature of the idea, for the first three years the friends were in extremely cramped material circumstances. The company did not generate income, but only required endless investments. In 2001, through joint efforts, they found a solution to the question of where to get money for further development. Larry Page introduces the idea of ​​advertising on a search engine page. The innovation was that the smart system tracked the user’s interests based on the queries he entered and displayed advertisements on related topics. Friends came up with a loyal payment system for advertisers - per click. Only the transition to the advertiser’s website was paid by him.

Since 2001, Larry Page's fortune began to grow exponentially. Then he earned his first million. And already in 2004 he became a billionaire. The idea of ​​free sale of shares contributed to such a rapidly growing fortune.

The initial price of Google shares was set at $85 per share. By lunchtime on the first day, the stock price had risen to $100. Today, the price of shares fluctuates around $920–950 per share.

Google's rapid growth

Today Google is not only a search engine. Although even he alone is capable of supporting his creators and their families until the end of time. According to data, at the beginning of 2017, Google processes about 2.5 trillion requests per year. Simple calculations show that 208 billion requests are made per month, and about 7 billion per day. In fact, every inhabitant of the planet makes one request every day.

In 2006, Larry Page acquired the video hosting company YouTube. This acquisition cost Google $1.65 million.

Today Google also has: Image Search, Google News and Frooglle services, the most popular postal service Gmail, Nexus smartphones based on Android, Google apps Maps and Google Play, as well as much more.

Career in the company

The creation of Google was a partnership, so friends shared ruling positions among themselves. The job title never played a decisive role for the two inventors.

However, Page has held the following positions:

1998–2001 - executive director

2001–2011 - President of IT Products

Since April 2011 - executive director

Transnational public corporation Google Inc. is developing at an accelerated pace. Its development does not carry the idea of ​​increasing profits, but only the globalization of the World Wide Web.

Larry Page once said, “If we did everything for money, we would have sold the company long ago and been relaxing on the beach.”

Forbes magazine ranked Page's name at number 12 in 2017. His fortune at the beginning of the year is 40.7 billion US dollars.

Larry Page's life outside of Google Inc

Larry Page is a fascinating person. He loves sports, and is especially fond of roller hockey and kite surfing. His friends and acquaintances note not only his extraordinary mind, but also his wit, as well as his endless thirst for new knowledge and discoveries.

Larry has been happily married for over 10 years. His wife is also directly related to computer technology, although this is not her only direction. Lucinda Southworth has three degrees, including a medical degree.

Page invests not only in the development of her brainchild, but also in other global projects. In particular, he is interested in finding alternative energy sources. He is making huge financial investments in this area. He is actively collaborating with some electric vehicle companies.

Page's interests go beyond global scales, but this does not prevent him from solving earthly problems. Like most rich people, Larry donates a lot to charity. In this endeavor, he is actively supported by his other half. Lucinda Southworth is actively involved in charity work in South Africa helping starving children.

Page's interest in philanthropy was more formal character, until he acquired serious problems with health. Problems with his vocal cords allowed him to reconsider his views. The result was solid financial support for the Voice Health Institute, which is engaged in developments to overcome voice problems.

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Leadership through the eyes of Google co-founders. Success story.

Business person: Larry Page - from creating the largest search engine to developing self-driving cars

The “Business Person” section tells Megamind readers what stories and facts surround the most prominent IT entrepreneurs from around the world, the value of the companies under whose management exceeds any reasonable limits. We will not limit ourselves only to the “new wave” of businessmen and will also talk about those who are commonly called the “old school”.

Today close up- Lawrence "Larry" Page, co-founder and developer of the Google search engine, who returned to the position of CEO of the company in 2011, and subsequently headed Alphabet. Larry Page's fortune is estimated at $37.4 billion, which allowed him to take 12th place on the Forbes list in 2015.

Childhood, education, hobbies

Larry Page was born into the family of Gloria Page and Carla Page on March 26, 1973. Larry's parents taught computer science at the University of Michigan, so there were always new models of computers in the house, as well as many magazines similar topics. All this could not fail to interest young Larry, who early childhood became interested in the principles of operation of applications for personal computers.

Larry's parents sent him to a Montessori school that took an unconventional approach to education. As Larry Page himself later noted: “This type of training, cultivating an approach of questioning all facts, as well as the situation in the world and the reluctance to follow orders, greatly influenced my future.”

At the age of 12, Larry Page read the biography of Nikola Tesla, who died in debt and obscurity - this story made an indelible impression on the teenager and then he began to think about the development of new technologies and the need to have knowledge of business fundamentals in order to correctly apply these technologies.

“I realized that the invention of new technologies in itself does not give anything. You need to get them out into the world so people start using them,” recalls Larry Page.

While studying at the University of Michigan, he became a member of the team developing a car based on solar powered. He was also one of the initiators of an attempt to build a monorail project in Michigan - then it was an option for a rapid public transport system between the campuses of the institute. Now Alphabet is developing self-driving cars and new transport systems within the Sidewalk Labs division.

Entrepreneurial experience

After graduating from the University of Michigan, Page went to Stanford, where in 1995 he met Sergey Brin, his future friend and co-founder of Google. At the age of 23, he woke up from an unusual dream - he dreamed of the idea of ​​“downloading the entire Internet.” Then he began working on a mechanism for ranking web pages and links to them depending on the content of the keyword.

Subsequently, Sergey Brin joined him and they began to develop a search engine algorithm, which they called BackRub among themselves. In September 1997, Brin and Page registered the Google.com domain, and its main purpose was to systematize information available on the Internet.

Page always admitted that he was much better at developing new technologies than he would be at management due to his dislike of interacting with people. As head of Google, he preferred to focus on results and ambitious ideas.

It is noteworthy that when Larry Page took the position of head of Google for the first time, he had a whole list of management rules that guided him:

• Don't delegate - do everything possible to speed up work processes;
• Do not interfere if your intervention provides some benefit to the project. Let your employees get on with their work and solve problems among themselves while you do something else;
• Don't become a bureaucrat;
• Ideas are more important than age - younger age does not mean that a person is worthy of less respect and support;
• There is nothing worse than interrupting someone without explanation. If you, for example, freeze a project or do something similar, you should help people find a new way to achieve what they planned.

Initially, Larry Page was not too happy about the idea of ​​​​appointing a new CEO, but after some time, on the contrary, he positively appreciated the fact that he was less involved in the daily management of the company.

In 2007, Larry Page decided to step back even further from managing the company in order to devote time to more worthwhile projects - he got rid of his assistants and now, for a banal conversation with him, you first had to find the co-founder of Google.

Despite this, he still continued to have an important influence on the development of Google and new products. It was he who initiated the takeover operating system Andy Rubin's Android, which later became Google's key focus in the mobile device market. Google CEO Eric Schmidt did not know about this deal until the last moment.

In 2011, he decided to return to the post of CEO and reorganize the company - then the launch of products such as Google+, Chromebook, Google Glass and the Fiber high-speed Internet project took place.

He continued to hold the post of CEO of Google until 2015, when another reorganization took place and Google became part of the new company Alphabet. Larry Page, on the contrary, took over the post of head of Alphabet, giving up the position to Sundar Pichai.

“At the helm of Alphabet, I will have the opportunity to develop more ambitious projects, as well as engage in long-term strategy. As a result, this will improve lives more people,” Larry Page mentioned in an open letter at the time.

In his new position, Larry Page is developing new technologies, as well as planning new major projects that can be launched within Alphabet.

Hobbies and charity

Despite his dislike of showing off his wealth, Larry Page purchased a $7 million mansion, along with another mansion with a rooftop garden and mostly powered by solar panels.

In addition, he purchased the 59-meter superyacht Sense in 2011 for $45 million, and currently anyone can rent it for $400 thousand per week. Together with Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt, he purchased eight private jets, including a Boeing 747.

In 2006, he founded a foundation in honor of the memory of his father, Karl Victor. The fund's assets as of 2014 exceeded $1.34 billion, and the main areas for donations were education, medicine, as well as support for disadvantaged families and solving the problems of the poor.

Larry Page's fortune grows every year, and Google remains the leading company in the search engine market. But now Google is just a small part of Alphabet, which does much more global problems and Larry Page now has much more at his disposal more resources to implement ambitious ideas.

Larry Page, one of the founding fathers of Google and chief executive of Alphabet, at at the moment is on the twelfth step in Forbes ranking with a net worth of approximately $48.8 billion. Also, according to the same publication, Page ranks tenth in the ranking of the most influential people in the world. Sounds impressive, doesn't it? How can we understand how the person who came up with the idea of ​​“downloading the entire Internet” thinks? Perhaps some of his beliefs will help us do this.

So, Larry Page's 9 rules for success:

1. Set big goals

The goals that actually get people to get up in the morning every day for 10 years must be truly big and great. A person must live it to inspire his team and stay the course.

2. Don't be afraid to make mistakes

Only by trial and error can you find out where to go and how to do the right thing. The fear of making mistakes is holding you back from doing what you probably need to successfully move your business forward. Google Hangouts is one of the attempts to do something good, and as you can see, many people appreciated this “attempt” and are actively using this service. Larry Page says they tried a lot of other options and ideas before releasing Hangouts. Therefore, if you take risks, it will pay off sooner or later.

3. Stay Organized

Once a company gets bigger and bigger, it becomes difficult to control small projects. Therefore, Page needed to come up with some new concepts for organizing the process. There was a time when Google was working on hundreds of projects at the same time and it was difficult to keep everything under control. Therefore, they simply compiled a list, ranking projects by importance. And, surprisingly, it worked.

4. Focus on the long term

The most important thing, according to Larry Page, is on long-term and important projects. However, the question arises: how to determine what is truly important? Paige suggests what she calls the “toothbrush test.” The point is to determine the importance of what you do through the frequency with which your end product is used by others. How often do you use a toothbrush? The average is twice a day, although some people brush their teeth after every meal. But nevertheless, the toothbrush remains very necessary item. It’s the same with projects. Determine what people use most often and work on it.

5. You must have a really good idea.

Starting a business selling “vapes” just because it is now a popular and fairly marketable product is bad and unreliable. You need to promote something of your own. Otherwise, doing business on something popular is a matter of just a few years. Larry Page is convinced that any idea, even if it is still at the development stage, requires investment. And often such “idea-driven” people go to investors. So, in order for people to invest in your business, it must be based on an original idea.

6. Take on challenges

One of the problems Google faces is that the information users are looking for is often not available in their native language. And this really became a hindrance for further development. The company spent 6 years to solve it. 6 years of project development so that information can be translated into 64 languages ​​so that users can comfortably get what they want. The challenge and acceptance of this problem forced Google to evolve.

7. Don't stop

Larry Page is sure that we should not stop there. Hire new specialists, educate yourself and develop yourself so that your business develops with you. If you want to do something big, there is no limit, no stop sign. You can move forward endlessly, discovering more and more new ways of working and sources of ideas.

8. Adapt

Times change quickly, and what was at the top of all the charts today may turn out to be a failed project tomorrow. Therefore, it is necessary to be able to quickly adapt to new conditions and in the world in order to be on top.

9. Follow your dreams

The best way to make your dream come true is to make it your hobby. Creating such a business and getting into Forbes lists, probably wasn't the dream of the co-founder of a huge company. Larry Page just wanted to make the world a better place and help people. And this dream acquired a name - Google.

chief executive officer

Childhood and education

Larry Page was born into a family of teachers in Lansing (Michigan, USA). Larry Page is the son of Carl Victor Page, Sr., a professor of computer science at Michigan State University, and Gloria Page, a computer science professor at the same university.

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