Immigrant Profile: Sergey Brin

Background

Sergey Brin, the cofounder of Google with Larry Page, was born on August 21, 1973, in Moscow. His parents were Michael Brin, a mathematics professor, and Eugenia Brin, a researcher for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

Immigration to the United States

Brin and his family came to the United States when he was six years old. The family’s Jewish heritage–and his father’s status as a “refusenik” who had applied for an exit visa from the Soviet Union–would have made it difficult for Brin to gain higher education and choose his profession in Moscow. After the family moved to the United States, he grew up in Maryland and earned his undergraduate degree in computer science at the University of Maryland, from which he graduated with honors at age 19. He then attended Stanford University and obtained his M.S and began work on his Ph.D. His research provided him with a vast knowledge of information about data mining, the extraction of information from unstructured sources and search engines.

Professional Background & Achievements

At Stanford, Brin and his friend Larry Page created a page-ranking algorithm that Google still uses to rank web pages. Their success on their project (using university computers) gave the two confidence that it was time to start their own company, and they dropped out of the Ph.D. program.

In 1997 Page and Brin registered the domain google.com. Their creation of Google has changed the world; the company, which began in a garage in 1998, has changed the way the world searches for and uses information. The company has gone on to become one of the most successful in history. Brin entered the National Academy of Engineering in 2004 for his leadership in creating a rapid World Wide Web indexing and retrieval platform used by hundreds of millions of people. As of January 2021, Forbes magazine estimated his personal wealth at $75 billion and has ranked him the ninth-richest person in the world.

Contributions to the U.S. Economy

Perhaps one of Brin’s greatest contributors to the United States economy has been the jobs created by Google in the last two decades. With new businesses and partnerships started up each year, Google is not only a leader, but one of the fastest growing companies in the world.