Tag Archives: Larry Page
Four Google Executives Getting 30% Raises For 2011
Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) announced in a filing with the U.S. SEC that seven senior executives are getting a 30% raise for 2011. These seven execs are Patrick Pichette, Nikesh Arora, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eustace. Now alll of their base salaries are $650,000.
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Larry Page and Sergey Brin Attempted To Hire Steve Jobs Back In The Day
Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted to hire Steve Jobs before Google became a large company. During Bloomberg TV’s Game Changers documentary of Google, Larry and Sergey had interviewed 12-13 candidates. Other facts that are in the documentary include how Jeff Bezos invested $250,000 into Google’s angel round of funding. Page and Brin hired Eric Schmidt as CEO partially became he also attended a festival in the desert called Burning Man. [BusinessInsider]
Categories Eric Schmidt, Google, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Sergey Brin
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Larry Page’s Business Card From 1998 And One Of The Most Expensive Mistakes
There is a thread on Reddit that said “Oops. What’s the most expensive mistake you’ve made at work? (Costs to your employer, or yourself).” The best answer to this thread was “I met both Carl Page and Larry Page at a party hosted by a Stanford friend of mine in 1998. Carl gave me his card for eGroups and said ‘we’re hiring’. Larry gave me his card for Google-a flimsy bit of paper obviously printed by bubble jet-and said ‘we’re hiring’. I said, ‘Nah, who needs another search engine?’ and went to graduate school.” [Reddit thread via BusinessInsider]
Categories Google, Larry Page, Reddit
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Google Renews Ann Arbor Office Lease For Another 5 Years
Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has renewed their Ann Arbor office space for another 5 years according to an article in Crain’s Detroit Business. Google has 80,000 square feet of office space in the McKinley Town Centre on South Division in downtown Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor is the city where Google co-founder Larry Page attended the University of Michigan and studied computer science. Page delivered the graduation commencement speech in May 2009 [see here]. Google operates the AdWords division in Ann Arbor. When they first moved into that office, they promised to employ about 1,000 people. So far about 250 people work out of that office. [AnnArbor.com]
Categories Google, Google Ann Arbor, Larry Page, University of Michigan
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Google Advisor and Silicon Valley Investor Rajeev Motwani Passes Away
This past Friday, a highly revered Silicon Valley investor Rajeev Motwani had passed away at the age of 47 in his Atherton, California home. The cause of death is currently unknown and he was found at the bottom of his backyard swimming pool.
Motwani is best known for being the advisor of Sergey Brin and Larry Page as they were founding Google. Motwani was an algorithms expert and mathematical theory professor while Brin and Page were students at Stanford University. Motwani helped Page and Brin discover the possibility of analyzing the web as an interconnected graph.
“When my interest turned to data mining, Rajeev helped to coordinate a regular meeting group on the subject. Even though I was just one of hundreds of graduate students in the department, he always made the time and effort to help. Later, when Larry and I began to work together on the research that would lead to Google, Rajeev was there to support us and guide us through challenges, both technical and organizational,” wrote Sergey Brin on his blog.
Prof. Motwani had written and contributed to several books and received the Gödel Prize. Motwani had even invested in several companies such as Tapulous and TokBox.
He was born in Jammu, India and grew up in New Delhi. After that he received a Bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. In 1988, he received a Ph.D. at the University of California-Berkeley and live around Silicon Valley since then. It is a tragic loss, but his contributions to the digital age will live on.
[via NYT]
Categories Larry Page, Rajeev Motwani, Sergey Brin, Stanford University
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Google Ann Arbor Exec Grady Burnett Leaves To Become Facebook Sales Head
Last month University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and Google co-founder Larry Page gave a commencement speech. One of the reasons why Google has a major advertising operations office in Ann Arbor is because Page is deeply tied to the city. His parents had actually met each at the University of Michigan according to Page’s speech.
Unfortunately for Google, the head of advertising operations at the Google Ann Arbor office Grady Burnett has stepped down to become the head of global online and inside sales at Facebook. Facebook Inc. has about $716 million in total funding and is pushing towards $500 million in revenue this year.
Burnett has been leading the AdWords division in Ann Arbor since 2006 and he will be replaced by Mike Miller.
“As you might imagine, this was a hard decision for me and my family. We love Michigan and I thoroughly enjoyed my nearly four years working for Google,” stated Burnett in an e-mail to CrainsDetroit.com.
Categories Facebook, Google, Google AdWords, Google Ann Arbor, Grady Burnett, Larry Page, Mike Miller
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Harbinger Capital Pitched NYT Stake To David Geffen and Google
Harbinger Capital is a private investment firm that owns about 19% of the New York Times. They bought the stake about one year ago when the stock price was above $19 and now the company is trading at below $7. Clearly they want to unload their equity in the company for a reason because they have been reportedly shopping around for a buyer. Specifically Harbinger looked in the direction of Google and Hollywood exec David Geffen.
Scott Galloway, a professor at NYU’s business school and one out of two board members from Harbinger that sits on the board at the Times made a pitch to Google co-founder Larry Page. Page took a serious look at the Times before deciding to pass. Geffen on the other hand made an offer, but was reportedly turned down. Geffen is the founder of Asylum Records and Geffen Records as well as the co-founder of Dreamworks SKG. Geffen is worth about $6.5 billion.
Recently the New York Times started looking for other revenue streams such as charging for some content on their web site and on the Kindle. If a deal isn’t made with Geffen, it is likely that the Times might turn to telecommunications conglomerate Carlos Slim.
[via Fortune]
Larry Page Delivers Powerful Commencement Speech At U of M [Video]
Earlier today I had the privilege to hear Google co-founder Larry Page speak at the University of Michigan. I found his commencement speech to be quite moving. He talked about how his parents first met at the University which is why he is a more personal connection with Ann Arbor. All of his family members went to school there and his dad ended up being on faculty at Michigan State University.
“This is way more than a homecoming for me. It’s not easy for me to express how proud I am to be here,” stated Page. “It’s an amazing institution that is responsible for my very existence.”
Page’s grandfather, an assembly line worker at General Motors in Flint insisted that Larry Page’s father attend school at the University of Michigan. Page also talked about how he thought of the idea behind Google when he was 23 in the middle of the night. He hopped out of bed and wrote down a plan to download the Internet and save all the links. Now the company makes over $16 billion per year and employs around 19,000. The company also has an office in Ann Arbor.
Page told the graduates of the class of 2009 not to be afraid of using their knowledge and creativity to try new things in ways that haven’t been tried before. He also talked about how polio has affected many in rural areas of India and was the disease directly involved with the passing of his father. Page’s father spent over a year in bed because of polio. He said that one day perhaps the graduates can find a way to erradicate polio for good.
If a video turns up on YouTube, I’ll make sure to add it to this post. Personally I was moved by Page’s commencement address.
Update: Looks like a video made it to YouTube within one day of the speech being made. Check it out above. The audio goes blank for one minute but comes back again between 1:30 and 2:30 minutes into the video.
Update 2: Full transcript is available after the jump via the Google Press Center
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Categories Google, Larry Page, University of Michigan
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