Big ideas begin here: Sergey Brin at Stanford

Sergey Brin (MS ’95), co-founder of Google and Alphabet Inc., began his graduate studies in computer science at the Stanford School of Engineering in 1993. During his second year, he met Larry Page, and together they developed PageRank, an algorithm they later renamed Google. What began as a Stanford research project debuted as a company in 1998.

On December 7, for the closing event of Stanford Engineering’s centennial year, Brin returned to campus for a conversation with Stanford President Jonathan Levin and Dean Jennifer Widom. At the event, Brin shared stories about his time as a student, reflections from the early days of Google, and insights on the future of education and AI. The original server that Brin and Page built to run their algorithm was displayed onstage. The event was hosted in collaboration with Stanford Engineering’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders lecture series.