Google

Actually, I was rather confused when my teacher gave me an assignment to write a story about my hero. At the beginning, it was very hard for me to get a name for that project. However I thought I have to do this assignment. Then, I started to surf in the internet, hoped I would get an inspiration. Everytime I want to search for something in the internet, I have to use a search engine, otherwise, I like a blind man without guidance for helping me walk. My favorite search engine is Google. I suddenly realized that I had just something to tell, Google.However, I think, I should also tell about the founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Finally, here is the story about Google and the founding fathers, Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

Sergey Mikhailovich Brin was born in Moscow on August 21, 1973. His parents, Michael Brin and Jenia Brin, were mathematicians who graduated from the Moscow State University. He and his family immigrated to the United States when he was six. His father was a professor in the department of mathematics at the University of Maryland. Due to his father’s profession, Brin became interested in mathematics. Brin’s mother was a NASA researcher. Even though he had lived in the U.S., his family still helped him in retaining his homeland’s language, Russian. In 1990, Brian enrolled in University of Maryland, College Park and he received his Bachelor of Science degree in May 1993 with high honors. When he started to run his Google project with his friend, Larry Page, he was in the preparation for finishing his Ph.D thesis. He was a doctor candidate in Stanford University, the same place where he got his master’s degree in computer sciences in August 1995. Besides, Brin had also received an honorary MBA from the Instituto de Empresa Business School. He married Anna Wojcicki in the Bahamas in 2007. One moment, Brin said that he was very thankful to his father for bringing him to America. His father just could say Brin’s success might not be come from his family’s background. But he felt very proud of his son and even he never imagined that Brin would be very successful like now.

Lawrence Edward “Larry” Page was born in Lansing, Michigan on March 26, 1973. He was the son of Dr. Carl Victor Page who was one of the University of Michigan’s first computer science Ph.D graduates. His father was a professor of computer science and artificial intelligence at Michigan State University. His mother, Gloria Page was a computer programming teacher at Michigan State University. His brother, Carl Victor Page, Jr was a co-founder of eGroups. He started showing his interest in computer when he was six years old. Page received his Bachelor’s of Science degree of computer engineering from the University of Michigan with honors and he was a Masters graduate from the University of Stanford. While he studied at the University of Michigan, he made an inkjet printer which he made from the Lego bricks. He married Lucinda Southworth at Richard Branson's Caribbean island, Necker Island, on 8 December 2007.

Google. This name was coming from the word googol which was found by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician, Edward Kanser. Googol means the digit 1 followed by one hundred zeros. That is a very, very big amount. In this world there’s nothing that reflects this word. That is why they use this name, to set their mission for organizing numbers of information that they can provide in the web. The idea of making Google was coming when Larry Page met Sergey Brin at the University of Stanford in 1995. In that time, Brin got an order to accompany Page to show him around the campus. During the time, they often got in long discussions. Both of them had different opinions and visions in giving responses of the topics that they were discussing. However their discussions resulted in the same mission to solve one of the biggest challenges in the computer world which is about how to get a data back from the massive data set.

In January 1996, Larry and Sergey began to collaborate in the making of a search engine. There were many struggles when they started this project. They had to collect used computers to provide their server needs. They also worked all day and night in a rented house to improve their project. In seven months, they got their first result, BackRub. And this initial version of Google was born in August 1996, though it was just well-known in the Standford’s community. They did not stop working after they got their first success. They still tried to make it perfect in the early 1998's. They also started searching for an investor to raise Google’s technology. Luckily, they met Andy Bechtolsheim, their campus friend and also the founder of Sun Microsystems. They met Andy in the dorm’s veranda and they gave a short demo about Google to him because he did not have much time. After he got the explanation, soon, he gave a ten-thousand-U.S. dollar cheque to them. But Andy’s cheque did not solve their problem because the cheque was written in the name of Google corporation. In fact, the corporation had not built yet. Of course they could not cash in that cheque before there’s a legal institute named Google. So, they needed to work hard again in searching the fund. They searched it from their families, their friends, and their colleague until at last they got around one million U.S. dollars. Finally, Google corporation officially opened in the Menlo Park, California on September 7, 1998.

Now, Google is a big corporation and they did not work in a rented house any longer, they work in Googleplex, a big office. Page and Brin were also concerned for their workers’ welfare. Evidently in 2007 Fortune magazine crowned Googleplex as the best working place in America. Googleplex has a very welcoming atmosphere; there is free food three times daily, there is a nurturing place for young mom’s baby, and even there are electronic massage chairs. Page and Brin were very conscious that behind their success, there are many people who have helped them.

Don’t be evil. That is Google’s motto. Google is very honest in giving service. If another search engines uses method “ higher pay gets higher rank” in the first time, but not in Google. Google uses PageRank system which can control that higher rank in the search results are sites which get higher recommendations from another sites. That is really helping people in their work. Google also always divides the search results from the advertisements which are related to the search keyword.

The most important point is there is a power of simplicity in Google. Google was made from a simple thought. They just wanted to help people in searching data from the internet. Now their simple thought, and of course contiguous with hard work and high integrity, has given a big positive impact to all people around the world. That is why I say Google is my hero in the web world.