Larry Page
Larry Page is an American computer scientist and entrepreneur who co-founded Google with Sergey Brin. He developed the algorithm that ranked web pages according to the number and the quality of the links that point to them.
Early Life and Education
Page was born in East Lansing, Michigan, in 1973. Both of his parents were professors of computer science at Michigan State University.
He studied computer engineering at the University of Michigan and graduated in 1995. He went to Stanford University for a doctorate in computer science.
He was interested in the mathematical properties of the web and in the problem of ranking the results of a search. The research led to the founding of Google.
The PageRank Algorithm and the Founding of Google
Page developed a method of ranking web pages by treating the links between them as votes. The method was named PageRank and was described in a paper published in 1998.
He met Sergey Brin at Stanford and the two men collaborated on the project. They built a search engine in their dormitory rooms and named it Google, a play on the word googol.
They founded the company in 1998 in a garage in Menlo Park, California. They raised the initial capital from family and friends and later from the venture capital firms.
The search engine grew rapidly because its results were more relevant than those of the competitors. The company became the dominant search engine of the web.
The Management and the Expansion
Page served as the chief executive officer of Google from 1997 to 2001 and again from 2011 to 2015. He shared the management with Brin and with the executive Eric Schmidt.
He led the development of the advertising system that became the financial foundation of the company. He also oversaw the acquisition of YouTube and of Android.
He drove the company's investment in the mapping, the cloud computing, and the artificial intelligence. He promoted the idea of the company as a place of bold and ambitious projects.
He became the chief executive officer of Alphabet, the parent company, at its formation in 2015. He stepped down from the post in 2019.
The Later Work and the Legacy
Page has supported the research into the life extension and into the clean energy. He has invested in the development of the electric aircraft and of the flying cars.
He has funded the research of the futurist organisations and the development of the autonomous vehicles. He is a supporter of the scientific and the technological education.
He received the Marconi Prize in 2004 with Brin for the development of the search technology. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
He is one of the wealthiest people in the world. His work has transformed the way in which people find and use information.
The Early Career and the Research
Page was a doctoral student at Stanford when he began the research on the structure of the web. He was interested in the mathematics of the links between the pages.
He developed the PageRank algorithm with Sergey Brin. The algorithm treated the links as votes and ranked the pages by their importance.
The paper describing the algorithm was published in 1998. It became one of the most cited papers in the computer science.
The Leadership and the Vision
Page served as the chief executive of Google at different periods. He shared the management with Brin and with Eric Schmidt.
He promoted the idea of the moonshot, the ambitious project that aims to solve a large problem. He established the Google X laboratory for the research.
He has argued for the importance of the long-term thinking and of the investment in the research. He has supported the development of the artificial intelligence.
The Education and the Family
Page studied computer engineering at the University of Michigan. He went to Stanford University for a doctorate in computer science.
He met Sergey Brin at Stanford and the two men collaborated on the research into the web. They founded Google in 1998.
He is married to Lucinda Southworth and has two children. He is known for his interest in the sustainable technology and the life extension.
The Products and the Innovation
Page led the development of the search engine and of the advertising system. He oversaw the acquisition of YouTube and of Android.
He drove the company's investment in the mapping and in the cloud computing. He promoted the development of the artificial intelligence.
He established the Google X laboratory for the ambitious research projects. The laboratory developed the self-driving car and the augmented reality glasses.
The Leadership and the Strategy
Page served as the chief executive officer of Google at different periods. He shared the management with Sergey Brin and with Eric Schmidt.
He became the chief executive officer of Alphabet at its formation in 2015. He stepped down from the post in 2019.
He has received the Marconi Prize with Brin for the development of the search technology. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
See also
- PageRank
- Search engine
- Sergey Brin
References
- ↑ Brin, Sergey and Page, Larry. The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine. Computer Networks, 1998.
- ↑ Vise, David and Malseed, Mark. The Google Story. New York: Delacorte Press, 2005.
- ↑ Levy, Steven. In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011.
- ↑ Battelle, John. The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business. New York: Portfolio, 2005.