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Google founder Larry Page turns 50
Prog World ^ | 3.26.2023

Posted on 03/26/2023 8:32:05 AM PDT by libh8er

In 1973, many important events took place in the world. The Soviet research apparatus Lunokhod-2 went flying to the Moon, and four automatic stations went to Mars, the TV series Seventeen Moments of Spring was shown for the first time on central television, and the rock band AC / DC appeared in Australia. And on March 26, 1973, Lawrence Edward Page was born in Lansing, Michigan, a man without whom the modern IT industry would look completely different. Today he turns 50 years old.

Larry Page has been dealing with computers since childhood – his father, Carl Victor Page, Sr., received a PhD in computer science from the University of Michigan and taught computer science there as a professor, and Larry’s mother lectured on programming at Lansing’s Lyman Briggs College. Page later recalled in numerous interviews that at his parents’ house “

there were computers, technical books and popular science magazines everywhere

“. That is, from early childhood, he had an excellent opportunity to satisfy his craving for computing: Larry said that he remembers how he spent a huge amount of time studying this literature.

In addition to the exact sciences, Larry showed a penchant for music – his parents assigned him to a local music school, where the young talent learned to play the flute and saxophone, and in the summer they sent him to the Interlochen Arts Camp for young musicians in Interlochen, Michigan. Larry became interested in computers at the age of six – he was the only child in the class who knew how to type text in a text editor, and when he was a little older, he began to disassemble his parents’ computers to see how they were arranged from the inside. At the same age, he began to take an interest in finance and business. As Page later recalled,At about 12 years old, I decided that sooner or later I would become the founder of my own company.“.

After graduating from high school in 1991, Page entered the University of Michigan, where his father taught, in the computer engineering department, where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1995. After that, he enrolled in a master’s program in computer technology at Stanford University, from which he successfully completed in 1998. During his training, Larry was actively involved in technical creativity: for example, when his group needed to print several large posters, preferably very cheaply, Page built a large-format inkjet plotter from several Lego sets. There, in the magistracy, he developed a project for an unmanned monorail with a separate car for each passenger, as an internal transport system that could operate on the territory of the university, and a business plan for a company for the production of software for digital music synthesizers.

When choosing a topic for his master’s thesis, Larry Page was going to devote his work to telecommunications systems “remote presence” or unmanned vehicles, but his supervisor Terry Allen Winograd (Terry Allen Winograd) suggested that Page call the work “Studying the mathematical properties of the World Wide Web.” He also gave the student the idea to represent the relationship and structure of hyperlinks on the Internet in the form of a huge graph. Page later claimed that “it was the best idea he ever heard in his life”.

This Einstein-like professor gave Page the idea that led to Google

While working on his dissertation, Page set himself the task of determining which web pages are linked to a given page, and how relevant these links are, given the number and nature of backlinks. As a basis for determining the “weight” and value of backlinks, he took the principle of citation in academic publications. Larry modestly named this ranking algorithm after himself – PageRank, and the research project was named “BackRub”. Soon he was joined by another graduate student at Stanford University – Sergey Brin.

Wired magazine co-founder John Battel wrote:

“At the time Page conceived BackRub, there were roughly 10 million documents on the Web with innumerable links between them. The computational resources needed to traverse such a volume of information were far beyond the usual capabilities of a student project. To understand what he was getting into, Page began to develop his own crawler. The complexity and scope of the idea attracted Brin to work – he was also looking for a topic for a dissertation, and the idea seemed exciting to him. The student project developed by Page and Brin, which began in Page’s dorm room, where the guys placed their first server, eventually turned into the Google search engine, a company whose capitalization now exceeds the budget of some states of our planet. In 1998, Larry and Sergey founded Google Inc. in Menlo Park, California. The first version of Google was launched in September 1998 and it quickly became popular among Internet users for its fast and accurate search results.

Google’s success can be called truly phenomenal: in 2004, the company went public with an IPO, raising $1.67 billion. The IPO made Larry Page a billionaire and one of the most visible figures in the technology industry – today his net worth is estimated at $93 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making Larry Page the seventh richest person in the world.

Larry Page’s journey from computer science student to co-founder of one of the world’s largest technology companies is unique in its own way. His passion for technology and innovative ideas have had a profound impact on the technology industry and the world at large. Google’s legacy and Larry Page’s vision will shape the future of technology for years to come – today, moving away from the operational management of the corporation (but retaining a controlling stake), he is investing in other promising startups – in particular, in artificial intelligence technologies and the production of flying cars.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Chit/Chat; Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: google; larrypage

1 posted on 03/26/2023 8:32:05 AM PDT by libh8er
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To: libh8er

Typical loyal apparatchik:

Page was born on March 26, 1973,[19] in Lansing, Michigan.[20][21] His mother is Jewish;[22] his maternal grandfather later immigrated to Israel,[21] though Page’s household growing up was secular.[22][23] His father, Carl Victor Page Sr., earned a PhD in computer science from the University of Michigan. BBC reporter Will Smale described him as a “pioneer in computer science and artificial intelligence”.[24] Page’s paternal grandparents came from a Protestant background.[25][26] Page’s father was a computer science professor at Michigan State University and his mother Gloria was an instructor in computer programming at Lyman Briggs College at the same institution.[27][24][28]


2 posted on 03/26/2023 8:35:07 AM PDT by euram (allALL)
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To: euram

While Google and Page are a big deal, I am doubtful the industry would look that much different if they hadn’t hit the scene. Yahoo and Alta Vista were decent search engines that would have evolved more had Google not made the leap when they did.


3 posted on 03/26/2023 8:42:00 AM PDT by Dr. Sivana (But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth? (Luke 18:8))
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To: libh8er

Moved his family to New Zealand to ride out his fellow travelers’ Great Reset.

https://search.brave.com/search?q=larry+page+moves+to+new+zealand&source=desktop


4 posted on 03/26/2023 8:48:17 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (The worst thing about censorship is ████ █ ██████ ███████ ███ ██████ ██ ████████. FJB.)
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To: euram
Typical loyal apparatchik:

That comment reeks of the strong stench of anti-intellectualism rampant in conservative circles today.

5 posted on 03/26/2023 8:49:24 AM PDT by nwrep
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To: libh8er

Fifty what?


6 posted on 03/26/2023 8:50:29 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer ("Gun violence" ISN'T the problem idiots. People violence is the problem. Embrace the suck!)
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To: nwrep

No, Google is nothing more than an arm of the Media-Dem Party and has been since at least 2008.


7 posted on 03/26/2023 8:55:55 AM PDT by euram (allALL)
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To: euram

Oh sure, 100% agreed. But we should not cast aspersions on academic achievements. There is a perhaps well-justified suspicion of university educated people, but we should be careful not to become so averse to high academia that we become anti-intellectual. The conservative movement needs its intellectuals, something that is sorely missing today compared to the decades of the past when Milton Friedman, WFB, and Russell Kirk were active pillars of our movement.


8 posted on 03/26/2023 9:04:28 AM PDT by nwrep
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To: Dr. Sivana

“Yahoo and Alta Vista were decent search engines”

True.

Now we’re down to a dog pile....


9 posted on 03/26/2023 9:10:37 AM PDT by Paladin2
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To: Dr. Sivana

Sounds about right. Someone else would’ve done search that way and turned users into product through advertising. Google abandoned their “do no evil” motto and wastes endless money on tech projects that are inevitably canceled with few exceptions.


10 posted on 03/26/2023 9:32:12 AM PDT by newzjunkey (We need a better Trump than Trump in 2024)
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To: libh8er

I hope he gave Dr. Winograd a share or two.


11 posted on 03/26/2023 10:26:07 AM PDT by montag813
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To: libh8er
Back in the day, Google was a breath of fresh air in Internet search.

I still remember navigating the not so obvious "lists" of Yahoo! and the unsatisfying results of Alta Vista and Lycos.

Things have changed since but back then, Google was the place to go.

12 posted on 03/26/2023 10:35:45 AM PDT by SamAdams76 (5,016,040 Truth | 87,429,920 Twitter)
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To: libh8er

RE: Today he turns 50 years old.

Why is this a big deal deserving of its own special headline?


13 posted on 03/26/2023 10:54:20 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: libh8er

Google IPO stock based on false number of users so stock fraud. They steal advertisers and youtube creators money. They help steal elections and block free speech.


14 posted on 03/26/2023 1:48:10 PM PDT by minnesota_bound (Need more money to buy everything now)
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To: nwrep

Google sold out when they abandoned their “Do no harm” motto. They sold out to the CCP and ratted out dissidents. They did this for money and to cuddle up to their commie trash masters in the CCP.

Conservatives are not anti-science, yah boob. Just anti jumping at every supposed “discovery” and forcing others to follow you without even the benefit of peer review.

You are a sheep.


15 posted on 03/26/2023 2:20:57 PM PDT by bobbo666 (Baizuo)
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To: bobbo666
Google sold out when they abandoned their “Do no harm” motto. They sold out to the CCP and ratted out dissidents. They did this for money and to cuddle up to their commie trash masters in the CCP.

All that is 100% true. No arguments. That and more has been known for a while and exposed by the Twitter files.

Conservatives are not anti-science, yah boob. Just anti jumping at every supposed “discovery” and forcing others to follow you without even the benefit of peer review.

Not anti-science. Rather, anti-intellectual. There is a growing strain of anti-intellectualism in the Republican party, manifested in suspicion of highly educated intellectuals with credible knowledge in their fields. This is a dangerous trend. Conservatives cannot all be populist slogan shouters. We need serious, sober intellectuals who formulate intellectually sound arguments in defense of the conservative position.

16 posted on 03/26/2023 5:56:23 PM PDT by nwrep
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