Casey's Essay

Larry Page Biography
“Basically, our goal is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful.” (www.thinkexsist.com) These words, said by Larry Page, describe what he does with his search engine, Google. He is the co-founder of Google, along with Sergey Brin. Larry was born in Lansing, Michigan on March 26, 1973. He is the 24th richest man in the world. As of March 2001, his wealth is estimated to be $19.8 billion dollars. Larry lives in Palo Alto, CA with his wife Lucy Southworth and their little boy. He is 38 years old and is a self-made man who co-founded Google, the search engine we all know and use today. Larry Page had many events in his life that contributed to the creation of Google, by far the most used search engine on the Internet today, which has changed the world.

Larry’s parents had a pretty big influence on what he wanted to become when he was older. Larry Page’s dad, Carl, was a professor of computer science and artificial intelligence at Michigan State University and Gloria, his mother, taught computer programming. His home as a young kid was full of computers and science magazines so when he was bored, he read. “Larry’s love of computers began at age six.” (www.crunchbase.com). Larry was an honors student at the University of Michigan. He graduated with a B.S. in computer engineering and then went on to study computer science at Stanford University. “It was here that he first undertook the project of analyzing patterns of linkage among different sites on the World Wide Web.” (www.achievement.org). Larry met Sergey Brin, also a computer science graduate, and recruited him to join the research project he was pursuing (what later became Google). He left Stanford once he got his master’s degree in 1995. All these events led up to the creation of Google, the famous search engine.

Google is by far the most used search engine on the Internet today. This search engine made Larry Page and Sergey Brin famous. The domain “Google” was registered in 1997. The name was derived from the term “googol” which is a number that is expressed as 10100, “an expression of the vast universe of data the Google search engine was designed to explore” (www.achievement.org). Now we have exploration at our fingertips versus the before the Internet people had to look their topic up in a book. Since it’s founding in 1998, Google has become one of the most successful dot-com businesses in history. In addition to Google, there are many more search engines on the web today including Webopedia, Dogpile, Mahalo, Bing, Yahoo, Yippy, Ask, HotBot, Gigablast, LookSmart, Lycos, AltaVista, and DuckDuck Go. All of these other choices are good options but it really depends on what you like. For example, DuckDuck Go searches slower than Google but it gives you a preview of the first web page. Google was voted four times for the Most Outstanding Search Engine. Google has searched at least two BILLION web pages. Every search someone searches on Google appears in less than one second. Google has a well-deserved reputation as the top choice for those searching the web and has a major influence on us today. (www.searchenginewatch.com)

Larry Page’s (and Sergey Brin’s) famous search engine has had a huge influence on the United States. Their creation of Google influenced many other people to step up and make their own search engine. A vast amount of people around the world can search any topic they want with the ease of Google that loads every search in less than one second. Google is helping people get more jobs because “Google hired 1,900 employees during the quarter, bringing the total to 26,316.” (www.businessinsider.com) The search engine Google has had a colossal impact on the United States and the way people search the Internet.

Larry Page’s co-founded invention, Google, has had an enormous impact on our society today. We would not be able to search the Internet as easily as we do today if Larry Page (and Sergey Brin) hadn’t developed Google. From Larry Page’s life as a young boy and being influenced by his dad, to going to college and meeting Sergey Brin in computer class, to majoring in Computer Science, and to inventing Google, he has had a fully packed life filled with wonder and excitement. This 38-year-old man has had a big impression on our lives with his wonderful innovation, Google.