Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Founders of Google) - Entrepreneur Profile October 31

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Google foundersNames: Larry Page and Sergey Brin

Dates of birth: 26/3/1973 (Page); 21/8/1973 (Brin)

Mini CV: - Met in 1995 as PhD computer science students at Stanford University

- Created Google as a research project early the next year

- Still co-running the company along with - since 2001 - Eric Schmidt

Larry Page and Sergey Brin provide the classic example of a pair of entrepreneurs who latched onto an existing concept and took it further than anybody else could imagine - creating what is now ranked as the world’s third most valuable technology company. Seeing a gap in the nascent search engine market of the mid 1990s (essentially that search engines might better analyse the relationships between website than rank according to search term occurrences), they created Google after using its concept as a base for their research theses, seeing its popularity and profitability mushroom soon after.

These two ex-Harvard students are far removed from the idea of school-underachiever-made-good - both have parents who are academics and both were interested in computers and computer programming from an early age, showing obvious mathematical talent to boot. But ability is nothing if it cannot be channelled effectively and this pair’s obvious talent in their field was complemented by a sharp business sense � setting up google.com in 1997 after an embryonic version on Stanford’s website proved a huge success.

Google’s appeal stemmed largely from its simplicity. Visitors to google.com were, and still are, greeted by a sparse site with few or no distractions save for the entry field and no adverts. The interface had few obvious frills but was simple, unlike several of its rivals’, and allied with its innovative searching method attracted millions of users. Much of Google’s revenue has come through the placing of relatively unobtrusive text-based adverts in its products - which include an email service - based on key search terms and thus tailored to the user’s interests.

Page and Brin have a huge range of projects ongoing, seeming to have some kind of finger in most online pies. The recent purchase of video site YouTube - a staggering archive of user-generated and commercial online video content - served notice of its instinct that online video communication will be a key medium in the future, while add-ons to the sensational Google Earth product look likely to provide unrivalled surveillance and demographic statistics for just about any region in the world. Other ongoing projects include work with NASA - in part encouraging space entrepreneurs - at its Ames Research Centre.

The duo have spread a relaxed, liberal working culture among their 9,378 full-time employees - offering the company’s engineers the chance to spend 20 per cent of their time on ventures which personally interest them and stressing that good work results from enjoyment and passion. This makes Google an appealing employment prospect, particularly as it openly refused to privilege experience over innate ability.

What to learn from this pair of entrepreneurs - the 26th and 27th richest people in the world according to the most recent figures? Both had undoubtedly advantageous upbringings, but the way in which they deployed the knowledge and resources available to them is an inspiration. Undoubtedly, Stanford itself was a major driving force behind their creation; they took full advantage of the educational opportunity afforded them before branching out and creating their own empire.

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