Jun 22, 2022

Brin earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics and computer science at the University of Maryland, and then flew west to Stanford to get his Ph.D. in computer science. There, his love of high-adrenaline exercise flourished: he tried out skating, skiing, gymnastics, and even trapeze. Page, left, and Brin in 2004. Ben Margot/AP Brin's resume from back in 1996, as he was working toward his Ph.D. at Stanford, is still available online. Before Google, Brin was more focused on making an algorithm for personalized movie recommendations, or finding a way to automatically detect cases of copyright infringement. Page and Brin eat lunch with Google employees in the cafe at Google in 2001. LEA SUZUKI/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images Brin met Google cofounder Larry Page at Stanford in 1995. The two reportedly found each other "obnoxious" at first, but they later became classmates and close friends who geeked out about computer science, according to a 2005 Wired profile. Larry Page, left, and Sergey Brin. RANDI LYNN BEACH / AP Images The founders created the first Google Doodle in 1998 to let people know they weren't around to do damage control if the site broke — that's because they were at Burning Man, the freewheeling art festival in the middle of the Nevada desert. Google Both Brin and Page are "burners," meaning they're devout fans and attendees of Burning Man. When the time came to hire an outside CEO for Google, they approved the hire of Eric Schmidt in 2001 after learning he had attended the festival. They then brought him to Burning Man with them to "see how he would do." Jim Urquhart/Reuters As Google ballooned from simply a search engine to a massive corporation with dozens of diverse projects, Brin became the mastermind behind some of its most ambitious ones as the head of X, the company's moonshot factory. His projects included self-driving cars, smart contact lenses, and smart glasses. Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty For a long time, you couldn't spot Brin without the computerized Google Glass smart glasses. The New York Times reported that Brin may have played a big role in the product's rocky launch in 2012, rushing it into the world before it was ready for public scrutiny. Carlo Allegri/Reuters Brin also worked on Google's now-dismantled social network, Google Plus. He admitted onstage in 2014 that he should have never worked on it because he's "kind of a weirdo" and not very social. "It was probably a mistake for me to be working on anything tangentially related to social to begin with," Brin said. AP "Obviously everyone wants to be successful, but I want to be looked back on as being very innovative, very trusted and ethical," Brin has said. "And ultimately making a big difference in the world." Brin speaks to the media at a preview of Google's prototype autonomous vehicles in Mountain View, California, in 2015. Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters But even as Google grew into a multibillion-dollar company, Brin maintained the freewheeling spirit of the early days. Around Google's campus, he typically wore workout clothes and Vibram barefoot shoes, and he was frequently seen zipping around the office on Rollerblades, doing yoga stretches during meetings, or walking around on his hands for fun. Larry Page, left, and Sergey Brin on Google's campus in Mountain View, California, in 2003. Kim Kulish/Getty Images The couple donated hundreds of millions of dollars to charity, including to Parkinson's research. The neurodegenerative disease runs in Brin's family (both his great aunt and mother had it) and a test through 23andMe — Wojcicki's company — revealed that Brin has a genetic mutation that makes him predisposed. Ruben Sprich/Reuters To lower his chances of getting Parkinson's, Brin started exercising even more intensely and drinking green tea twice a day. Due to his health regimen and scientific progress, he estimated in 2010 that he now has only about a 10% chance of getting the disease. From left: Brin, Eric Schmidt, and Larry Page. Mario Anzuoni/Reuters However, Brin's marriage to Wojcicki hit the rocks in 2013, and the couple separated. They officially finalized their divorce in June 2015 after eight years of marriage. Donald Bowers/Getty Images for The Weinstein Company It later came out that around the time of his separation in 2013, Brin had started an affair with a Google employee who was also in a relationship with another high-level Google executive at the same time. Brin wearing Google Glass in 2013. Jeff Chiu/AP In August 2015 Brin's title got a major upgrade when Google went through a major restructuring. Brin transitioned from director of special projects at the moonshot division, X, to become the president of Alphabet, Google's new parent company. Page was named Alphabet's CEO. Re/code, Asa Mathat Meanwhile, Brin and Page had become billionaires several times over. In 2005, they bought a 50-person plane together. Brin also owns a superyacht, Dragonfly, which he bought back in 2011 for $80 million. Larry Page and Sergey Brin. AP Brin owns real estate in both New York City and California. He's invested quite a bit of money in Los Altos, where he owns property, through a real estate investment firm called Passerelle Investment Co. The investments went toward helping mom-and-pop, kid-friendly stores and cafes spring up or stay in business. Houses in the hills in Los Altos, California. Andrei Stanescu/Getty Images Sergey Brin and Nicole Shanahan. Kimberly White/Getty Images for Breakthrough Prize In December 2019, Brin and Page shocked the world: They announced in a joint statement that they were stepping down from their respective roles at Alphabet. "We've never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think there's a better way to run the company," they wrote. Both Page and Brin remain members of Alphabet's board of directors. Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Getty In June 2022, Insider reported that Brin had quietly filed for divorce from Shanahan, citing "irreconcilable differences." They've been separated since December 2021, according to court filings obtained by Insider. Taylor Hill/Getty Images