Larry Page, along with Sergey Brin, invented the world’s most
popular search engine to date, “Google”. Google has an estimated 300 million
users per day, with more than 2 billion searches conducted in a day, making
Google one of the most visited websites on the internet.
Lawrence E. Page (better known as Larry Page), was born in
Lansing, the capital state of Michigan, on Monday, 26 March 1973. 26 March is
also the date of birth of many other famous personalities such as Alan Arkin,
Keira Knightley, Kevin O’ Neal and singer Diana Ross.
Larry Page’s childhood is the reason behind his love for computers
and technology. Coming from a home where both his parents were related to the
computer science field, their home used to be filled with all sorts of gadgets,
computers and science magazines. It was from here that he, at the age of six,
started to show an interest in science related things. He eventually became the
first child in his elementary school to submit an assignment in a
word-processed form.
Larry Page’s father Dr. Carl Page and his mother Gloria Page both
worked in the field of computer science. Carl Page was one of the first few PhD
graduates from the University of Michigan. He graduated in 1965, when the
computer science field was still in its early years. Larry himself
completed the Bachelors of Science degree in Computer Engineering from the same
university as his father. Both of Larry’s parents were professors at Michigan
State University. His father was a professor of Computer Science and Artificial
Intelligence, whereas his mother taught a computer-programming class at the
university.
Larry Page’s brother, Carl Victor Page Jr. is not as successful as
Larry is. Carl sold his co-founded eGroups to Yahoo. In 2008, Carl went through
a financial crisis. Earlier Carl had been far ahead of his brother in terms of
success. However, a decade later it had all changed.
While studying at the University of Michigan, Larry Page made an
inkjet printer using LEGO Bricks.
At the University of Michigan, Larry Page was also a member of the
1993, “Maize & Blue”, University of Michigan Solar Car team. The team was
responsible for building the 1993 Maize & Blue solar car on behalf of the
University of Michigan from 1990-1993. The car participated in 2 races, winning
the National Championship in Sunrayce 1993 and finishing 11th in the World
Solar Challenge. The car is now displayed at the Museum of Science and Industry
in Chicago, Illinois.
Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were students at
Stanford University. Brin and Page met in March 1995, when Brin was asked to
show the campus to the new PhD students during Spring Orientation. Larry was
one of the new students. Apparently, both of them did not get along well during
their first meeting and argued the entire time.
Page and Brin eventually became friends and started a research
project together, by the name of ““The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hyper textual
Web Search Engine”. This research paper later became the foundation for Google.
Surprisingly, both did not complete their PhDs, as Google became successful.
Larry Page hired Google’s first employee, namely Susan Wojcicki.
Susan was a fellow PhD of the founders at Stanford University. It was also Susan’s garage from where the
company started its first operation, back in September 1998.
Success for Google did not come easy.It required a lot of effort in
terms of time and money. Thus, when Google got its first investment of $
100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim, both Larry and Sergey went to Burger King to celebrate
over breakfast.
“Never lose a business opportunity”, is something that Larry Page
firmly believes in. Therefore, when Google was developing the payment structure
for its ad system, it was not a surprise that Page suggested taking goats as
payment from customers in Uzbekistan. The reason for this was that Uzbekistan
did not accept credit cards as a form of payment.
Both co-founders are said to argue a lot and have differences of
opinion, which they believe is essential for their success and growth. However,
a few things are common as well, like their hatred for golf and their Boeing
767.
Did you know why Google Head Quarters have a strong air filter
system? Larry and Sergey’s strong sense of smell is the key reason.
Larry Page, along with Sergey Brin, gives the utmost importance to
the SAT scores of their employees during the recruitment process. They believe
that this information helps them judge employees well, in order to establish
how intellectually sound they are and how well they will fit in at Google.
During August 2004, when Google started its initial public offering,
Larry Page wanted the buyers to take a test prior to buying Google stock. His
philosophy behind this was that the buyers should be well aware of what Google
is all about. However, the US Securities and Exchange Commission did not allow
it.
The press-shy Larry Page married Lucinda Southworth, sister of actor
Carrie Southworth and a biomedical informatics student at Stanford, on a
Caribbean island in 2007. She is better known as “Lucy Southworth”, a name
given her by The New York Post. Their wedding was a lavish affair. 600 guests
were flown to the island in a private jet and many A-listers were part of the
wedding, such as U2 lead singer Bono, Leonardo Dicaprio and Johnny Depp, to
name a few. Millions of dollars were spent on the lavish wedding, unlike the
wedding of his partner Brin that was a small and quiet affair.
Larry Page has dated Marissa Mayer prior to his marriage with Lucy
Southworth. Marissa Mayer is now the president and CEO of Yahoo, making her the
youngest CEO amongst the Fortune 500 companies.
Larry Page is reported to be on good terms with Apple co-founder
Steve Jobs, “at times”. They are said to have an on and off relationship with
due to issues involving the Android operating systems.
Larry has been suffering from a mysterious illness, which force him
to not attend recent annual Shareholder’s meetings. Apparently, the illness
made him lose his voice, due to which he was unable to show up. Not much is
known about his condition as of now.
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