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Posts Tagged “
Sergey Brin
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cloud computing
Google's Chrome dream -- a mainframe-era computing monopoly
"I think operating systems are kind of an old way to think of the world," Google cofounder Sergey Brin told a klatsch of reporters after the Mountain View ad agency's song-and-dance routine to announce its new browser, Chrome. Brin is a little older than me, which I find surprising — not because I'm so old, but because even I remember the days before there really was a personal computer on every desk (and on every lap, and in every pocket). What was there? More »
Google Chrome
Best part of Wired's Chrome feature: Sergey pets the snake
In the October issue of Wired, Steven Levy has delivered a formulaic feature on the making of Google's Chrome browser. It's just like those jargony trade-publication writeups you've read ad nauseam — but with the value-add of meeting recaps. One line makes the whole thing worth it, however, is engineer Pam Greene's retelling of a demo by colleague Darin Fisher to Sergey Brin : "Sergey was bouncing on one of those exercise balls, watching Darin give a demo, and petting the snake," according to Pam Greene, an engineer on the project. Oh, wait — it was a stuffed snake. No, that doesn't make it any better. (Illustration of Greene by Scott McCloud)
clips
Kite-surfing too gnarly for Larry and Sergey
Thrill-seeking Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin regularly kite-surf off San Mateo, we've heard in the past. Below, a video clip of one trick the pair should not attempt — kite-surfing during a hurricane. Can you imagine the hike in the billionaires' insurance rates? More »
wedding announcements
Gavin Newsom selects Jennifer Siebel as gubernatorial running mate
San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom is running for higher office again, so it was time for another wedding. The latest bride is actress Jennifer Siebel. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were happy to lend the Google party plane to ferry guests from the Bay Area, so apparently no hard feelings about that whole San Francisco-wide Wi-Fi thing. More »
George Church
23andMe advisor bidding for Google-backed prize with Google's help
Genetics researcher George Church is a great believer in openness, according to a profile of him in Wired. So he shouldn't mind a bit if we disclose some facts about his business dealings that we find fascinating. To wit: More »
acquisitions
Will Art Levinson leave Genentech after a Roche takeover?
South of the City and hard by the shores of San Francisco Bay, Genentech rarely attracts the attention of the founders of flashy Internet startups as they drive past its offices on the way to the airport. But the biotech company's longtime CEO, Art Levinson, is an integral part of the Silicon Valley scene, serving on the boards of both Google and Apple. That's why Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche's move to buy the 44 percent of Genentech it doesn't already own for a price north of $38 billion could have reverbations well beyond the world of automated pipetting systems. More »
23andme
Google cofounder funnels money to wife's startup through Michael J. Fox charity
Google employees must avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest, according to the company's code of conduct. But Sergey Brin is exempt from such bureaucratic trifles. The cofounder skirted ethical lines when he loaned money to 23andMe, a genetic-testing startup cofounded by his wife, Anne Wojcicki, and later had Google repay that loan in the course of investing in that company. The Google board's audit committee and CEO Eric Schmidt blithely signed off on the deal, however. Now, Brin has found a new way to route money to 23andMe, this time through a charity — thereby boosting, at least notionally, the value of Google's investment and his wife's net worth. Brin can claim it's all for a good cause, but the deal stinks to high heaven. More »
11:20 AM on Wed Jul 16 2008
By Owen Thomas
9,846 views,
23 comments
Latest by WagCurious: @drury: Wow, you people are wildly ignorant of federal tax law. Remind me to never let you prepare my tax more »
google
Sergey Brin cares about the children
Google CEO Eric Schmidt and cofounder Larry Page sat down with reporters for over an hour during an impromptu press conference while playing Bilderbergers at Allen & Co.'s exclusive Sun Valley getaway yesterday. There was talk of Google's Android cell-phone operating system; of China; of the search-ads deal with Yahoo. But it was fitness enthusiast Sergey Brin, rushing in late after a reported flat bicycle tire, who stole the show with feel-good blather: More »
yahoo
Photos: Jerry Yang not having much fun in Sun Valley
What's Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang thinking in these photos from Reuters? Carl Icahn has no plan B. Microsoft is both confusing and sort of mean. Mean! The Google guys sitting across the table are trying to relate, but can't. They're talking about Richard Branson's beach house again. Don't know they know I wanted to be invited? Life is hard. It's Jerry's Fucking List, people!
perks
Solving Google's childcare crisis, the Microsoft way
Google cofounder Sergey Brin has explained his company's childcare fiasco thusly: It's an experiment in economics. And yet there's very little that's scientific about Google's approach to childcare, which has been to hand Susan Wojcicki, Brin's sister-in-law, a blank check, and then accuse parents of feeling entitled when the result comes in with sky-high costs. Raising the price well above market rates was the only way, Brin argued in meeting with parents, to reduce a long waitlist. Gosh, how can a large software company fairly handle childcare benefits? If Google weren't so determined to do things differently — wild ono and adzuki beans for lunch! Stanford grads with 3.5 GPAs as instructors! — it might look to Microsoft's example. The software giant offers employees 20 percent discounts on childcare from a number of providers — and its executives are smart enough to realize that they know how to write code, not take care of infants.
sergey brin
Kinderplex crisis reveals Google founder's fumbling and fibbing
Joe Nocera of the New York Times has taken note of Google's childcare crisis. A brief recap: After taking its childcare programs in-house, at the behest of Google executive Susan Wojcicki, the sister-in-law of founder Sergey Brin, Google hiked its rates 70 percent. Parents were infuriated not just at the price hike but, accustomed to Google's culture of analysis-driven consensus, at the imperious way the decision was handed down. Nocera's reporting reveals more numbers showing just how incompetent Google is at daycare — and how comfortable Brin's PR handlers are at lying on his behalf. How, in other words, Google has become just like any other company in corporate America. More »
larry and sergey
Don't want to be evil? Better get rid of the Google plane
Lefty think tanks Essential Action and the Institute for Policy Studies have a new study out titled “High Flyers: How Private Jet Travel is Straining the System, Warming the Planet and Costing You Money." It implies some not-so-nice things about jet owners and Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin — even if they are left-leaning, Prius-driving friends of Bono. According to the report, private jets negatively impact: More »
job descriptions from the future
23andMe looking for designer comfortable with "vague" as directions
Designers, want to torture yourself in a contract position surrounded by smarmy, know-it-all PhDs who give you only the vaguest of instructions and expect you to master the intricacies of biotechnology overnight? Lured by the promise that you might one day get hired on full-time and get stock options at a company backed by Google and run by Google cofounder Sergey Brin's wife? Unbothered by the fact that the California Department of Public Health has just banned the company's service? Then, dear visual-thinking friends, this position for a graphic designer at 23andMe is for you! The job description: More »
perks
Google daycare now a luxury for Larry and Sergey's inner circle
Life inside the Googleplex already resembles a daycare center, with its primary colors, bouncy exercise balls, and free food. But if you're a parent working at Google, daycare has become a nightmare. As recently as last July, Google advertised its Kinderplex child-care center as a perk, though the rates it charged weren't much below the market price. The reality: Googlers haven't been able to get their kids into the Kinderplex, thanks to a long waiting list, and the facility is now closing, being replaced by overpriced facilities designed at the behest of Susan Wojcicki, the multimillionaire sister-in-law of Google cofounder Sergey Brin and mother of four. Google employee-parents are up in arms — not over the price hike itself, but over the way the decision came down from on high. More »
5:00 PM on Fri Jun 13 2008
By Owen Thomas
23,166 views,
50 comments
Latest by N/A: When Brin and Page decided to take my You Tube Business Model in 2004 when I submitted it them to more »
space travel
Sergey Brin buys a $5 million deposit for a ticket to space
Virginia-based space tourism company Space Adventures typically pays the Russian government $20 million to $40 million to hold a seat on its Soyuz flights for its wealthy customers. But now, Space Adventures plans to fund an entire flight all for itself. Two tourists and a Russian commander will depart Earth on 2011 for a trip to the International Space Station. One of the tourists? Google cofounder Sergey Brin, who's invested $5 million in Space Adventures as a deposit on his ticket to the final frontier. Of the news, Brin said: More »
toogle many googlers
Google's suburban sprawl
Google's announcement today of a massive campus expansion was inevitable. Having taken over every last scrap of office park around it not occupied by neighbor Intuit, Google is expanding the Mountain View Googleplex to the west — and, more controversially, to the east, on land owned but poorly used by Nasa. Ignore the happy talk about Google and Nasa's scientific partnerships; those are an obvious fig leaf to cover the use of public land by a private entity. (Let's not even get started on Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt's sweetheart deal to park their party plane on Nasa grounds.) Google has grown to be a powerful employer in the Bay Area, and its wealthy executives donate freely to local politicians, so we should hardly expect the powers that be to stop it. What's good for Google is good for America, or so we'll be told. More »
5:00 PM on Wed Jun 4 2008
By Owen Thomas
5,892 views,
28 comments
Latest by N/A: I went to an interview at Google in 2007- at the time I lived 1 block from SF caltrain and asked more »
google
