Biography:

Larry Page was born on March 26, 1973, in East Lansing, Michigan. His father, Carl Page, was a pioneer in computer science and artificial intelligence, and his mother taught computer programming. After earning a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from the University of Michigan, Page decided to concentrate on computer engineering for graduate school at Stanford University, where he met Brin.

Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin was born on August 21, 1973, in Moscow, Russia. The son of a Soviet mathematician economist, Brin and his family emigrated to the United States to escape Jewish persecution in 1979. After receiving his degree in mathematics and computer science from the University of Maryland at College Park, Brin entered Stanford University, where he met Larry Page. Both students were completing doctorates in computer science.

The Beginning of Google:

As a research project at Stanford University, Brin and Page created a search engine that listed results according to the popularity of the pages, after concluding that the most popular result would often be the most useful.

They called the search engine Google after the mathematical term "googol," which is a 1 followed by 100 zeros, to reflect their mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the internet. After raising 2 million from family, friends and other investors, the pair launched the company in 1998. Headquartered in the heart of California's Silicon Valley, Google held its initial public offering in August 2004, making Brin and Page billionaires. Google has since become the world's most popular search engine, receiving an average of more than a trillion searches a day in 2016.

Success, Technology and Expansion:

In 2006, Google purchased the most popular website for user-submitted streaming videos, YouTube, for 2.65 billion in stock. In 2012, Google unveiled its futuristic Google Glass, a type of wearable eyeglass-computer that featured touchpad and voice control, an LED illuminated display and a camera.

While touted as the latest “it” in tech toys, concerns over privacy and safety and a lack of a clear purpose in everyday life ultimately stymied its success in the commercial market. Its technology, however, has been applied for use in healthcare, journalism and the military.

On August 10, 2015, Brin and Page announced that Google and its divisions were being restructured under the umbrella of a new parent company called Alphabet, with Brin and Page serving as Alphabet's respective president and CEO.

Fame:

In September 2013, Page was ranked No. 13 on the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America. That October, he was ranked No. 17 on Forbes' 2013 "Most Powerful People" list. In November 2016, Brin was ranked No. 13 on Forbes' "Billionaires" list, and No. 10 among U.S. billionaires who made the list. 

According to biography