Business person: Larry Page - from the creation of the largest search engine to the development of unmanned vehicles

The “Business Person” heading tells “Megamind” readers about what stories and facts surround the most prominent IT entrepreneurs from all over the world, the value of companies running which exceeds any reasonable limits. We will not be limited only to the “new wave” of businessmen and we will also tell about those who are called the “old school”.

Today, close-up is Lawrence “Larry” Paige, co-founder and developer of Google search engine, who has again taken over as CEO of the company since 2011, and later he headed Alphabet. Larry Page's fortune is estimated at $ 37.4 billion, which allowed him to take the 12th place on the Forbes list in 2015.
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Childhood, education, hobbies

Larry Page was born in the family of Gloria Page and Carla Page on March 26 in 1973. Larry's parents taught computer science at the University of Michigan, thanks to which new computer models were always present in the house, as well as many magazines of similar subjects. All this could not fail to interest young Larry, who from early childhood was fascinated by the principles of the work of applications for personal computers.

Parents sent Larry to a school in Montessori, which adhered to non-standard approaches to education. As Larry Page himself noted: “This kind of training, cultivating an approach with putting all the facts into question, as well as the situation in the world and the unwillingness 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 a teenager, and then he began to think about developing new technologies and the need to have a basic business knowledge in order to apply these technologies correctly.

“I realized that the invention of new technologies in itself gives nothing. You need to spread them around the world so people can start using them, ”recalls Larry Page.

Along with programming lessons, Page also played the saxophone, and music lessons later played an important role in the life of the future founder of the most popular search engine.



While studying at the University of Michigan, he became a member of the solar-powered vehicle development team. He was also one of the initiators of the attempt to build a monorail project in Michigan - then it was a variant of the fast public transport system between the campuses of the institute. Now Alphabet is developing unmanned vehicles 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 23, he woke up from an unusual dream - he dreamed of the idea of ​​“download 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 domain Google.com, and its main goal was to systematize the information available on the web.



Page has always recognized that he is much better at developing new technologies than he would have been managing because of his dislike for interacting with people. As head of Google, he chose to concentrate on results and ambitious ideas.

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

• Do not delegate - do everything possible to speed up workflows;
• Do not bother if your intervention gives some benefit to the project. Let the staff do the work and will solve the problems between themselves while you are doing something else;
• Don't become a bureaucrat;
• Ideas are more important than age - a smaller age does not mean that a person deserves 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 the planned one.

Larry Page held the position of head of Google until 2001, when he was replaced by Eric Schmidt, who added his "experience" to the company. Larry and Sergey very carefully approached the selection of candidates for the position of CEO, but in Eric Schmidt they were bribed by information about his hobbies about computers and that he was also a “burner” (participant of the eight-day festival in the US, which takes place in the Black Rock Desert . red.).



Initially, Larry Page was not too happy with the idea of ​​appointing a new CEO, but after some time, on the contrary, he positively assessed less of the involvement in the daily management of the company.

In 2007, Larry Page decided to step back 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, he had to first find a Google co-founder.

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 of the Android operating system Andy Rubin, which later became a key focus for Google in the mobile device market. Eric Schmidt did not know about this deal of Google CEO until that moment until the last moment.

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

He continued to hold the post of CEO of Google until 2015, until another reorganization took place and Google did not become part of the new company Alphabet. Larry Page, on the contrary, took the post of Alphabet head, losing the post to Sundar Pichai.

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

In the new position, Larry Page is developing new technologies, as well as planning new large projects that can be launched as part of Alphabet.

Hobby and charity

Despite his dislike for the demonstration of his condition, Larry Page acquired a mansion worth $ 7 million, along with another mansion with a roof garden and mostly solar powered.

In addition, he purchased the 59-meter Sense superyacht in 2011 for $ 45 million, and currently anyone can rent it for $ 400,000 a week. Together with Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt, he acquired eight private jets, including the Boeing 747.

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

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