Tag Archives: Sergey Brin
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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Wikimedia Foundation Receives $2 Million Grant From Google
The Wikimedia Foundation has received a $2 million grant from Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG). Google provided the investment through the Google Inc. Charitable Giving Fund of Tides Foundation. “Wikipedia is one of the greatest triumphs of the internet,” stated Google co-founder Sergey Brin. “This vast repository of community-generated content is an invaluable resource to anyone who is online.” The Wikimedia Foundation operates several websites including Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikinews, Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource.
Sergey Brin: “Android and Chrome Will Likely Converge Over Time”
Google co-founder Sergey Brin told reporters last week that “Android and Chrome will likely converge over time”. Both open source operating systems use Linux and Webkit browser code. The operating systems are very similar in user interface as well.
Sergey Brin Donates $1 Million To Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) co-founder Sergey Brin is giving back to an organization that gave to him about 30 years ago. Sergey Brin and his family arrived in the United States with the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS). Brin is now giving the Society $1 million for helping his family back then. THe Society helped families escape anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union.
“I would have never had the kinds of opportunities I’ve had here in the Soviet Union, or even in Russia today,” stated Brin in an interview with The New York Times. “I would like to see anyone be able to achieve their dreams, and that’s what this organization does.”
Even though the $1 million is not much compared to Brin’s personal wealth, it is an indication that the Google co-founder and his wife are engaged in philanthropic initiatives. Brin pointed out that Bill Gates was highly criticized for not engaging in philanthropy until much later of his career. “While everyone was criticizing him, he was generating a whole lot more money for his foundation, and ultimately, when he got serious about philanthropy, he did it really well,” said Brin about Gates. “I’d like to learn from that example.”
Brin and his wife have given away $30 million in charities with a majority of that going towards the Michael J. Fox Foundation and other organizations that focus on Parkinson’s disease.
When Brin’s family was immigrating to the U.S., HIAS paid for their tickets, gave them money, and helped the family apply for visas. Sergey’s mother Eugenia is on the board of HIAS and helped the organization digitize their archives and launch a social network.
Categories Google, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Sergey Brin
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Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki Invest $500,000 In Creative Commons
Creative Commons has received $500,000 from 23andme co-founder Anne Wojcicki and Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
“We are delighted that the couple recognizes the importance of Creative Commons and has decided to invest in our work to support sharing, collaboration, and the spread of knowledge and creativity,” stated Melissa Reeder of Creative Commons on the company blog. “This gift – made in addition to the financial support that Google offers CC annually – will be used to support Creative Commons generally, with a focus on developing our Science Commons project, which Wojcicki and Brin are particularly excited about.”
Lawrence Lessig, the Creative Commons founder stepped down from the company last year to focus on Change Congress. Around the time that Lawrence left, Creative Commons received a $4 million grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Interestingly ValleyWag points out that Creative Commons is chaired by Esther Wojcicki, the mother of Anne. Google also employs Esther as an educational consultant. Sounds like Brin likes to keep business and family together.
Categories Anne Wojcicki, Creative Commons, Lawrence Lessig, Sergey Brin
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Google Invests $2.6 Million In 23andMe
Google has reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission that they have invested $2.6 million in the genetic testing startup 23andMe as part of a Series B round of funding. 23andMe was co-founded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s wife Anne Wojcicki.
It is uncertain whether the deal was made directly through Google or through their Ventures subsidiary. The $2.6 million round of fund was part of a $12.6 million Series B round. The other $10 million came from Sergey Brin’s personal wealth of $12 billion. This brings 23andMe’s total funding to about $21.6 million. Other investors include Genentech, New Enterprise Associates, and Mohr Davidow Ventures.
Google owns a minority interest in 23andMe and also plans to lease space to the genetics company. Google wrote in the filing that they took measures to ensure the decision before investing to make the agreement was free of conflict of interest. Sergey Brin was not part of the investment discussions according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
[via BusinessInsider/NYT]
Bing Increases Microsoft’s Market Share; Upsets Google’s Sergey Brin
Bing is Microsoft’s new search engine. Microsoft is currently making the transition from Live Search to Bing. Microsoft has also gone as far as advertising on TV to hosting a 3 hour special on Hulu.
The New York Post is reporting that Google co-founder Sergey Brin is so upset by the launch of Bing that he has put together a team of Google’s top engineers to work on an urgent upgrade to their search engine. Brin is leading the team to figure out how Bing’s search algorithm differs from Google.
“New search engines have come and gone in the past 10 years, but Bing seems to be of particular interest to Sergey,” stated an NY Post source. Usually Brin is not as involved at day-to-day operations at the company, but works more on the high-level operations.
When Microsoft launched Bing, they put aside about an $80 to $100 million marketing budget together. This is not a bad amount compared to the failed bid for the acquisition of Yahoo! Microsoft offered Yahoo! to be acquired for $44.6 billion, but Yahoo! turned down the offer.
Bing’s market share helped Microsoft’s search market share jump from 9% to 11%. Bing’s homepage is similar to Google, but features a colorful image on the homepage everyday. There is not much of a difference between Bing and Google, but what gives Google the advantage of their major investment in Mozilla and close-knit relationship with Apple.
Google is the default search engine for both Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari. Google is also the default search engine Safari on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Google gets a lot more hits due to being the default. It will not be surprising to see Bing become the default search engine for all future versions of Internet Explorer and for Microsoft Windows 7.
Categories Google, Microsoft Bing, Microsoft Corporation, Sergey Brin
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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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