Lawrence "Larry" Page (1973) is an American computer scientist and internet entrepreneur who co-founded Google Inc. with Sergey Brin, and will be the future CEO of the proposed conglomerate, Alphabet Inc. Page is the inventor of PageRank, Google's best-known search ranking algorithm.As of November 2014, Google has 55,600 employees and operates in more than 40 countries.
Larry Page in world's Billionaries
In August 2015, Google CEO Larry Page announced that he will hand the job over to the search giant's product czar, Sundar Pichai, later this year. Page will become CEO of Alphabet, a new publicly traded parent company that will include Google, the Google X lab, and business such as Calico, Nest and Fiber. The announcement came soon after Google stock surged to an all-time high in July, propelled by success in mobile search and with YouTube and a promise from new Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat to rein in spending. Earlier this year Google unveiled Sidewalk Labs, a new subsidiary to improve quality of life in cities, as well as plans to provide mobile phone services in the U.S. Page cofounded Google in 1998 with fellow Stanford Ph.D. student Sergey Brin and was its first CEO until 2001. After serving as president of products, he took the helm again in 2011. In October 2014, he transferred most of his daily responsibilities to Pichai in order to focus on longer-term strategy. A clean energy advocate, Page's network of houses in Palo Alto use fuel cells, geothermal energy and rainwater capture.
Early Life and Career
Larry's father, Carl Page, was a pioneer in computer science and artificial intelligence, and his mother taught computer programming. After earning a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from the University of Michigan, Page decided to concentrate on computer engineering at Stanford University, where he met Sergey Brin.
Google Begins
As a research project at Stanford University, Page and Brin created a search engine that listed results according to the popularity of the pages, after concluding that the most popular result would often be the most useful. They called the search engine "Google" after the mathematical term "googol," which refers to the No. 1 followed by 100 zeros, to reflect their mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web.
After raising $1 million from family, friends and other investors, the pair launched the company in 1998. Google has since become the world's most popular search engine, receiving an average of 5.9 billion searches per day in 2013. Headquartered in the heart of California's Silicon Valley, Google held its initial public offering in August 2004, making Page and Brin billionaires.
Evolving Conglomerate
In 2006, Google purchased the most popular website for user-submitted streaming videos, YouTube, for $1.65 billion in stock.
In September 2013, Page was ranked No. 13 on the "Forbes 400" list of the richest people in America. That October, he was ranked No. 17 on Forbes' 2013 "Most Powerful People" list. As Google's CEO, Page shared responsibility for the company's day-to-day operations with Brin, who served as director of special projects for Google, and Eric Schmidt, the company's executive chairman.
On August 10, 2015, Page and Brin announced the creation of a new parent company called Alphabet to oversee Google and other subsidiaries. Page and Brin were set to serve as the new company's CEO and president, respectively, with Sundar Pichai stepping in as Google's top executive.
Between (1998-2009)
PC Magazine has praised Google as among the Top 100 Web Sites and Search Engines (1998) and awarded Google the Technical Excellence Award for Innovation in Web Application Development in 1999. In 2000, Google earned a Webby Award, a People's Voice Award for technical achievement, and in 2001, was awarded Outstanding Search Service, Best Image Search Engine, Best Design, Most Webmaster Friendly Search Engine, and Best Search Feature at the Search Engine Watch Awards."In 2002, Page was named a World Economic Forum Global Leader for Tomorrow and along with Brin, was named by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)'s Technology Review publication as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35, as part of its yearly TR100 listing (changed to "TR35" after 2005).
In 2003, both Page and Brin received a MBA from IE Business School, in an honorary capacity, "for embodying the entrepreneurial spirit and lending momentum to the creation of new businesses."In 2004, they received the Marconi Foundation's prize and were elected Fellows of the Marconi Foundation at Columbia University. In announcing their selection, John Jay Iselin, the Foundation's president, congratulated the two men for "their invention that has fundamentally changed the way information is retrieved today."Page and Brin were also Award Recipients and National Finalists for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2003.
Also in 2004, X PRIZE chose Page as a trustee of their board and he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.In 2005, Brin and Page were elected Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 2008 Page received the Communication Award from King Felipe at the Princess of Asturias Awards on behalf of Google.
2009 and at present
In 2009, Page received an honorary doctorate from the University of Michigan during a graduation commencement ceremony.In 2011, he was ranked 24th on the Forbes list of billionaires, and as the 11th richest person in the U.S.In 2015, Page's "Powerful People" profile on the Forbes site states that Google is "the most influential company of the digital era."
As of July 2014, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index lists Page as the 17th richest man in the world, with an estimated net worth of $32.7 billion.At the completion of 2014, Fortune magazine named Page its "Businessperson of the Year," declaring him "the world’s most daring CEO."
