Sergey Brin

Age: 34

WHAT HE DOES
Sergey Brin is the president for technology at Google, the $141 billion Mountain View, California, internet search giant he founded with fellow Stanford University Ph.D. candidate Larry Page.

WHAT HE’S KNOWN FOR
A co-creator of arguably the world’s most-watched company, Brin is also considered Google’s vision man and the arbiter of what is and isn’t “evil.” The term comes from a phrase used in the mission section of Google’s 2004 public-offering prospectus: “Don’t be evil.” When asked what exactly constitutes evil, chairman and chief executive Eric Schmidt told Wired magazine: “Evil is what Sergey says is evil.”

Compared with his straitlaced partner, Brin is more outgoing and wacky. Both founders have strived to stay out of the limelight, but in 2004, pictures appeared on the internet (thanks to his own baby, Google) showing Brin dressed in drag and wearing a Speedo at a college party. But Brin’s wild ways don’t seem to extend to his buying habits or lifestyle: He dresses mostly in T-shirts and jeans and eschews fancy sports cars for a Toyota Prius.

Brin is often rumored to be linked to various women, mostly Silicon Valley girls. But some gossip blogs report he is engaged to Anne Wojcicki, the sister of Google employee Susan Wojcicki, whose garage served as Google’s first office space.

WHERE HE’S FROM
Brin was born into a Jewish family in Moscow, but a combination of persecution and lack of satisfying work forced his parents to emigrate to the United States. The Brins settled in Maryland and, like his Google mate Page, Brin attended a Montessori grade school, which he credits for instilling in him a sense of individuality and entrepreneurship.

Brin’s mother and father are both mathematicians, and Sergey was recognized as a math prodigy as a child. Bored with the slow pace of his high-school classes, he skipped his senior year and went directly to the University of Maryland, where his father is a professor. He studied mathematics and computer science and, upon graduation, received a fellowship to study at Stanford.

Brin’s mathematical prowess allowed him to take it easy for most of his time at Stanford. According to The Search, a book about the birth of the search-engine industry, Brin signed up for classes in sailing, swimming, and scuba diving. His approach was to exert himself mentally only on things that interested him.

When he did choose to concentrate, Brin churned out papers on data mining and pattern extraction, fields of expertise that would come in handy when Page tapped him to help on his Web-cataloging project. They went on to co-author a seminal paper titled “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine.” The fruits of that dual effort would lead to the creation of one of the largest companies in the world, making the pair billionaires in the process.

WHERE HE’S GOING
As the member of the Google triumvirate in charge of dealing with governments, Brin has his work cut out for him. Besides leading the search engine company’s controversial move into China, Brin has traveled to Washington, D.C., to promote Google’s view on “net neutrality,” which contends that telecommunications companies should not be allowed to set up a tiered system that would charge firms like Google more for carrying their data.

Brin has admitted to being somewhat naive regarding the lobbying process, telling the Washington Post in 2006: “We are a seven-year-old company. Having policy that significantly affects us is kind of new to us.” —Zubin Jelveh