Larry Page is a well-known icon of the web and one of the co-founders of Google, along with Sergey Brin. Larry has an influential and inspiring personality- this American computer scientist has a fascinating success story to learn from.
Larry was born into a family with a greater obsession with technology that impacted his life in the early stage of his career. Surrounded by math and its product, he always had support and knew that he would start his own company.
He completed his college at the University of Michigan and Stanford University, the young man dreamed of providing the information and make it available free to the public.
Founding and Growth of Google
While completing his studies, Larry met Sergey Brin. With Brin's assistance, he developed the world's most popular search engine Google. Apart from computers and technology, Larry also has an interest in renewable energy technology and philanthropy.
In 1996, both Larry and Sergey developed a search engine initially called " BlackRub," which operated on Stanford's server for several months. Both of them decided to take their project as a company, where Andy Bechtolsheim (Co-founder, Sun Microsystems) played an important role by financing them with a cheque of $ 100,00.
In September 1998, they decided to change the name of the project, which was later named "Google." In 2001, Eric Schmidt was appointed as CEO of the company, while Page and Brin were appointed as presidents of product & technology, respectively.
Google and Other Platforms
In 2004, they decided to launch a social networking site. And in the same year- Orkut and Google Desktop Search were launched.
In the same year, Google held its Initial Public Offering(IPO), making Larry and Brin millionaires. In 2005, Google announced many of its products i.e. Google Maps, Google Reader, Blogger Mobile, and iGoogle. In 2006, Google acquired YouTube and also introduced Gmail.
Larry further decided to expand the company and made a partnership with China Mobile and Salesforce.com in 2007. They also decided to provide Google apps for free to all and also for educational purposes.
In the year 2011, Larry Page became CEO of Google, while former CEO Eric Schmidt continued to serve as Executive Chairman of the company.
Today Sunder Pichai is the CEO of Google.
Larry's Awards and Achievements
- In 2002, he was named as a World Economic Forum Global Leader for tomorrow.
- In 2003, he received MBA from IE Business School.
- In 2004, he received the Marconi Foundation's Prize and elected Fellows of the Marconi Foundation.
- In 2005, he was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science.
- In 2006, he received the Communication Awards from King Felipe.
- In 2011, he ranked 24th on the Forbes List of billionaires.
- In 2015, Forbes listed Google as "the most influential company of the digital era."
- In 2015, he was number one in Forbes " America's Most Popular Chief Executive."
- In 2017, Larry was awarded honorary citizenship of Agrigento, Italy.
I hope you get inspired by Larry Page's Journey of inventing Google and its product.
Larry says, " Lots of companies don't succeed over time. What do they fundamentally do wrong? They miss the future."