Sergey Brin

A dorm-room search engine called Backrub

Working from their dorm rooms, Brin and Page built a search engine that used links to decide how important a page was. They called it Backrub. Soon after, it was renamed Google.2

In August 1998 Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote them a cheque for $100,000, and Google Inc. was officially born. The same year Brin was first author, with Page, of the paper The anatomy of a large-scale hypertextual Web search engine. Crossref counted 9,314 citations for it in the record fetched.23

Four jobs in two decades

Brin was Google's president and chairman of the board from September 1998 to July 2001. He then became President, Technology and Co-Founder, a post he kept until April 2011. In May 2011 he became Google's president.1

When Alphabet was created in October 2015 he became its president, and he left that job in December 2019. In a letter dated 3 December 2019, he and Page said they would remain active as board members, shareholders and co-founders. They wrote that they were “deeply committed to Google and Alphabet for the long term”.16

Glass and a lesson in supply chains

Brin presented Google Glass at TED2013. His pitch was that “information would come to you as you need it”.5

Axios reported in 2025 that he looked back on the product with little pride. “I definitely feel like I made a lot of mistakes with Google Glass,” he said, adding: “I just didn’t know anything about consumer electronic supply chains.”11

Courts on three fronts, all against the company

In 2020 the US Department of Justice and plaintiff states sued Google, alleging that it used anticompetitive tactics to maintain monopolies in search and search advertising. In August 2024 the District Court for the District of Columbia concluded that “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly”. None of the sources fetched names Brin as a defendant: these are cases about the company.789

A second case, over advertising technology, ended in a ruling on 17 April 2025 that Google had monopolised open-web digital advertising markets. Google said it disagreed with the ruling on Google Ad Manager, which it called a small part of its business, and would appeal.101213

In Europe, the Court of Justice dismissed Google's and Alphabet's appeal and upheld a €2.4 billion fine over its comparison-shopping service. Google's published response said shopping ads connected users with thousands of advertisers and were useful to users and advertisers.1415

Brin, year by year

1. 1995

   Met Larry Page at Stanford, where Brin was a student assigned to show Page around2

2. Aug 1998

   Google Inc. was officially born after a $100,000 cheque from Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim2

3. Sep 1998

   Became Google's president and chairman of the board, roles he held until July 20011

4. Jul 2001

   Became Google's President, Technology and Co-Founder, a role he held until April 20111

5. May 2011

   Became Google's president1

6. 2013

   Presented Google Glass at TED20135

7. Oct 2015

   Became president of Alphabet, serving until December 20191

8. Dec 2019

   Wrote with Larry Page a letter saying they would remain involved as board members, shareholders and co-founders6

9. 2020

   The US Department of Justice and plaintiff states brought an antitrust case against Google78

10. Aug 2024

    A federal court in Washington found Google to be a monopolist in search9

11. Apr 2025

    A federal court in Virginia held that Google had monopolised open-web digital advertising markets10

12. Jul 2026

    Forbes estimated his net worth at $243.1 billion4

Questions people ask about Sergey Brin

Google on Kenning