Larry Page

Lore & Background

Page was born on March 26, 1973, in Lansing, Michigan. His mother is Jewish; his maternal grandfather later emigrated to Israel, though Page's household while growing up was secular. His father, Carl Victor Page Sr., earned a PhD in computer science from the University of Michigan and was a computer science professor at Michigan State University; his mother Gloria was an instructor in computer programming at Lyman Briggs College at the same institution. Page's parents divorced when he was eight years old, but he maintained a good relationship with both. When Page was six, his father brought home an Exidy Sorcerer computer, which he soon mastered. He recalled his childhood home was filled with computers and science magazines, an environment that fostered his creativity. He played instruments and studied music composition, attending Interlochen Arts Camp, and has said his musical education inspired his obsession with speed in computing.

Page attended Okemos Montessori School from ages two to seven, then East Lansing High School, graduating in 1991. He received a Bachelor of Science in Engineering with a major in computer engineering from the University of Michigan in 1995 and a Master of Science in computer science from Stanford University in 1998. While at Michigan, he created an inkjet printer made of Lego bricks, served as president of the Beta Epsilon chapter of Eta Kappa Nu, and was a member of the 1993 'Maize & Blue' Solar Car team. He also proposed replacing the university's bus system with a personal rapid-transit system and developed a business plan for a music synthesizer software company.

While a PhD student at Stanford, Page considered exploring the mathematical properties of the World Wide Web, understanding its link structure as a huge graph. His supervisor, Terry Winograd, encouraged him. Sergey Brin joined Page's research project, nicknamed 'BackRub.' Together they authored a research paper titled 'The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine.' They developed the PageRank algorithm, which analyzed the relevance of backlinks connecting web pages. Using Page's dormitory room as a laboratory and spare computer parts, they created a device to connect their nascent search engine with Stanford's broadband campus network. In August 1996, the initial version of Google, still on the Stanford website, was made available to Internet users.

Reader's Guide

Larry Page's significance lies in co-founding Google, which revolutionized how information is organized and accessed on the World Wide Web. Along with Sergey Brin, he developed the PageRank algorithm, a method for ranking web pages based on the number and quality of backlinks, which became the foundation of Google's search engine. This innovation transformed the internet from a chaotic collection of documents into a highly navigable and useful resource, making Google the dominant search engine globally. Page's leadership as CEO of Google and later Alphabet Inc. oversaw the company's expansion into numerous technology sectors, including advertising, mobile operating systems, and artificial intelligence. His decision to step down from executive roles in December 2019 marked a transition, but he remains a controlling shareholder and board member, continuing to influence the company's direction. Page's legacy is that of a technologist who turned a PhD research project into one of the most valuable and influential corporations in history, fundamentally altering how people find and use information.

Did You Know?

• Page created an inkjet printer made of Lego bricks while at the University of Michigan.
• He was the first kid in his elementary school to turn in an assignment from a word processor.
• Page's musical education inspired his obsession with speed in computing, as he said 'music training led to the high-speed legacy of Google for me.'
• He and Sergey Brin received the Marconi Prize in 2004 for co-creating PageRank.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American computer scientist and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known as one of the co-founders of Google along with Sergey Brin." — Larry Page "The Star Trek computer doesn't seem that interesting. They ask it random questions, it thinks for a while. I think we can do better than that." — Larry Page "Quoted in Ben Elgin, "Google's Goal: "Understand Everything," BusinessWeek (2004-05-03)." — Larry Page "I have a simple algorithm, which is, wherever you see paid researchers instead of grad students, that's not where you want to be doing research." — Larry Page