Sergey Brin is a force to reckon with when it comes to successful entrepreneurs. The 42-year-old co-founder of Google may not be in our faces or on our TV screens all the time, but he’s still one of the most recognizable figures in the tech world. However, despite the fact that Sergey Brin has been here for a while, there are still a few things that many people don’t know about him. We aim to change that. So here is our list of 20 Things You Didn’t Know About Sergey Brin:
1. He is 46
Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin was born on 21 August 1973. The location of his birth was the Soviet Union. His family traveled to the US when he was yet to be a teenager to begin a new life in the country.
2. His Father Has A Failed Dream
Brin’s dad, Michael Brin always wanted to be an astronomer. But this dream could not be achieved because of anti-Semitic policies that were not official in his university, which hindered him from furthering his studies in Physics. He resorted to Mathematics and decided on relocating to the west.
3. He Is Highly Educated
Brin emulated his dad and studied math too, going as far as studying Computer Science at the University of Maryland. Sergey got his doctorate at Stanford University.
At the uni, Sergey met a new pal, Larry Page and they both began work on a new search engine ((c) William Mercer McLeod) in a dorm room.
4. Family, Friends Sponsored Google
Google was started in a friend’s garage and was sponsored by family, friends and some investors.
5. He Has Broken Records
15 years ago, Sergey Brin became the youngest member in the list of Forbes 400 richest people in the whole wide world. He was just 31 at the time.
6. He Is Remarkably Wealthy
As at 2017, according to Forbes list, Brin was the 13th richest person in the universe, with a mouth-watering net worth of $38.2 billion.
7. He Is A Divorcee
Sergey Brin tied the knot with his beau, Anne Wojcicki in 2007. They share a son and daughter together. Although in 2013, rumors came out that they started living away from each other, which eventually led to their divorce 4 years ago.
8. He Might Have Parkinson In Future
Sergey Brin’s mother has Parkinson’s disease. Although the disease is not hereditary, according to reports, Brin is a carrier of a mutation of the LRRK2 gene (G2019S), which is exactly the same as his mother’s. This means he is at 20-80% risk of getting the disease in future.
9. He Is Working On The Future
Before he was appointed a president at Alphabet, Brin came up with Google Glass, a cool and interesting way to share information. He is also presently working on cars that drive itself.
10. He And Page Started Off On The Wrong Note
Sergey and Larry Page weren’t always friends. Especially at first sight. They spend their first day together disagreeing, as Brin toured the campus with Page.
11. He Overcame The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
Brin participated in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge! They were filmed doing it, and the clip is available on YouTube.
12. His Ex-Wife Is Made Too
Brin’s former wife, Anne Wojcicki is successful as well. She is famous for developing the genome company named 23andMe.
13. He Started Small
The first search engine Brin worked on was BackRub. He worked on this alongside Larry Page. This invention was operating on the servers at Stanford University.
- Must Read: 20 Things You Didn’t Know About Larry Page
This only lasted until the servers at the school could no longer cope with the bandwidth. BackRub was later given a new name – Googol – which was a number represented by the number one followed by 100 zeroes – decades ago.
14. He Worked With Good Investments
Google began operations in 1998, Brin and his co-founder was able to raise $1 million to launch the monster project.
15. He And Youtube CEO Share A Fascinating History
The current CEO of YouTube, Susan Wojcicki, was the lady who rented her garage to Sergey Brin and Page in 1998 when they were working on Google.
16. He Did Not Know Google’s HTML
The Google homepage is very easy because when it was created, Sergey Brin had no idea what the HTML was.
17. Google Was A Mistake
“Google.” is spelled this way because Sergey Brin and his co-founder mistakenly misspelled “Googol.” when registering the domain and trademark name.
18. He Wanted To Sell Google
Sergey Brin and his partner were ready to sell Google for $1M but no one offered to buy.
19. Yahoo Rejected Him
Before launching Google when they did, Sergey Brin & his partner attempted to sell their algorithm to Excite and Yahoo, but were rejected again for a weird reason – It was overly effective.
20. He Is A Decent Springboard Diver
Brin is decent at all four forms of springboard diving — forward, back, reverse, and inward. His twists might still need some work but he actually competed in the master’s division world championships. He finished 6th in the competition.
Hope you found these facts about Sergey Brin, to be interesting. If you have more interesting facts about him, feel free to share it in the comment box below.