Google cofounder Sergey Brin is stepping down as Alphabet's president. Take a look inside his crazy, eccentric, and wildly successful life (GOOG, GOOGL)

Google's cofounders are stepping down from their executive positions at the search engine's parent company Alphabet, the pair announced Tuesday.

More than 20 years ago, Sergey Brin and Larry Page first launched Google from a dorm room near Stanford University. Since then, the company has grown into the world's most popular search engine and branched out into everything from self-driving cars to life-extension research.

It's been a wild ride for both cofounders, but Brin's history is especially intriguing. Keep reading to learn more about the 46-year-old Brin, who served as Alphabet's president and is now worth more than $50 billion .

Jillian D'Onfro contributed to an earlier version of this story.

Sergey Brin, 46, is now valued at an estimated $56.8 billion, according to Forbes. But he comes from more humble beginnings.

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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Source: Forbes

Brin was born in the Soviet Union during the summer of 1973. His father dreamed of being an astrophysicist, but his Jewish background and USSRs anti-Semitism kept him from those ambitions. Instead, he ended up working as an economist for a government planning agency and crunching numbers for Soviet propaganda.

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(AP Photo/ Liu Heung-Shing)

Source: In The Plex

The family managed to get exit visas and flee the USSR when Brin was six. However, but his familys stressful, troubled experience left the Google cofounder with a lasting appreciation for democracy and freedom.

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AP Photo/Boris Yurchenko/stf

Source: In The Plex

The Brin family ended up in Maryland, where the Google cofounder was enrolled in a Montessori school that emphasized independence and fostering creativity. Later on, Brin would discover that his Google cofounder, Larry Page, had also gone to a Montessori school.

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computerstories.net / Flickr/TED Conference

Brin didnt revisit Moscow until he was 17, during a class trip led by his father. "Thank you for taking us all out of Russia," Brin told his dad. Spurred by a blossoming defiant streak, he threw pebbles at a police car, and almost got in serious trouble when the officers inside noticed.

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AP Photo/Boris Yurchenko

Source: Moment Mag

Brin eventually earned his bachelors degree in mathematics and computer science at the University of Maryland, and then flew west to Stanford to get his Ph.D. in computer science. There, his love of high-adrenaline exercise flourished: He tried out skating, skiing, gymnastics, and even trapeze.

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Google+, Sergey Brin

Sources: Founders of Google , Moment Mag

Brins resume from back in 1996, as he was working toward his Ph.D. at Stanford, is still available online. Before Google, Brin was more focused on making an algorithm for personalized movie recommendations, or finding a way to automatically detect cases of copyright infringement.

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Steve Jennings/Getty Images

Source: Business Insider

Brin met Google cofounder Larry Page at Stanford in 1995. The two reportedly found each other "obnoxious" at first, but they later became classmates and close friends who geeked out about computer science.

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RANDI LYNN BEACH / AP Images

Source: Wired

Brin and Page started collaborating in 1996 on a search engine they initially called BackRub. They registered the domain Google.com in September 1997 with the mission to organize the worlds information, and dropped out of Stanford the following year to work on their search engine. The rest, as we now know, is history.

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The Internet Archive

Source: Wired

The founders created the first Google Doodle ever in 1998 to let people know they werent around to do damage control if the site broke because they were at Burning Man, the free-wheeling art festival in the middle of the Nevada desert.

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Google

Both Brin and Page are "burners," meaning theyre devout fans and attendees of Burning Man. When it came around to hiring an outside CEO for Google, they approved the hire of Eric Schmidt in 2001 after learning he had attended the festival. They then brought him to Burning Man with them to "see how he would do."

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Jim Urquhart/Reuters

Source: Business Insider

As Google ballooned from simply a search engine to a huge company with dozens of diverse projects, Brin has been the mastermind behind some of the most ambitious ones as one-time head of X, the companys moonshot factory. His projects included self-driving cars, smart contact lenses, and smart glasses.

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Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty

Source: The New Yorker

For a long time, you couldnt spot Brin without the computerized Google Glass smart glasses. The New York Times reported that Brin may have played a big role in the products rocky launch in 2012, rushing it into the world before it was ready for public scrutiny.

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Carlo Allegri/Reuters

Source: The New York Times

Brin also worked on Googles now-dismantled social network, Google+. He admitted on stage in 2014 that he should have never worked on it because hes "kind of a weirdo" and not very social. "It was probably a mistake for me to be working on anything tangentially related to social to begin with," Brin said.

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AP

Source: Verge

Even as Google has grown into a multi-billion dollar company, Brin has stood by his fitness obsession roots. Hes known to typically wear workout clothes and Vibram barefoot shoes, and he was frequently seen zipping around the office on roller blades, doing yoga stretches during meetings, or walking around on his hands for fun.

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jurvetson / Flickr, Amazon

Source: Business Insider

Brin also has a wild sense of humor. "He conducted job interviews once dressed as a cow," early Google employee Douglas Edwards told Fast Company. As an April Fools joke, Brin once told pregnant Google employees that he would be offering birthing classes.

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Getty Images, Justin Sullivan

Source: Fast Company

However, a 2018 book also said that Brin was known as "the Google playboy" during the companys early days. "He was known for getting his fingers caught in the cookie jar with employees that worked for the company in the masseuse room," a former employee said. "He got around."

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Stephen Lam/Reuters

Source: Business Insider

Those who have known Brin attest to the fact that he truly does believe in using knowledge and power for the greater good. The Economist once called him the "Enlightenment Man," for his dedication to using reason and science to solve huge world problems.

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Getty Images / Justin Sullivan

Source: The Economist

"Obviously everyone wants to be successful, but I want to be looked back on as being very innovative, very trusted and ethical," Brin has said. "And ultimately making a big difference in the world."

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Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters

Source: ABC News

Meanwhile, Brin got married in 2007 to Anne Wojcicki, theCEO of genetics company 23andMe and the sister of early Google employee (and now YouTube CEO) Susan Wojcicki. For the wedding, the couple invited guests to a secret location in the Bahamas and wore bathing suits for the ceremony which took place on a sandbar.

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Flickr/Daniel Piraino, Donald Bowers/Getty Images

Source: Vanity Fair

Brin and Wojcicki have two children together, named Chloe and Benji. Both kids have the last name Wojin, a portmanteau of their parents last names.

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Steve Jennings / Stringer

Source: The New York Times

The couple donated hundreds of millions of dollars to charity, including at least $160 million to Parkinsons research. The neurodegenerative disease runs in Brins family (both his great aunt and mother had it) and a test through 23andMe Wojcickis company revealed that Brin has a genetic mutation that makes him predisposed.

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Ruben Sprich/Reuters

Source: Inside Philanthropy

To lower his chances of getting Parkinsons, Brin started exercising even more intensely and drinking green tea twice a day. Due to his health regimen and scientific progress, he estimated in 2010 that he now has only a ~10% chance of getting the disease.

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Mario Anzuoni/Reuters

Source: Wired

However, Brins marriage to Wojcicki hit the rocks in 2013, and the couple separated. The couple officially finalized their divorce in June 2015 after eight years of marriage.

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Donald Bowers/Getty Images for The Weinstein Company

Source: Business Insider

It later came out that around the time of his separation in 2013, Brin started an affair with a Google employee named Amanda Rosenberg, who was also in a relationship with another high-level Google executive at the same time.

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AJ+/YouTube

Source: Vanity Fair , Business Insider

In the more than 20 years since founding Google, Brin and Page have accumulated a great deal of dispensable income. In 2005, they bought a 50-person plane together. Brin also owns a superyacht, which he bought back in 2011 for $80 million.

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AP

Source: Business Insider

Brin owns real estate in both New York City and Los Altos, California. Hes invested quite a bit of money in Los Altos through a real estate investment firm called Passerelle Investment Co., which has helped mom-and-pop, kid-friendly stores and cafes spring up or stay in business.

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Flickr / Tina Case

Source: Wall Street Journal

As of 2015, Brin employed at least 47 people to manage his personal affairsincluding a yacht captain, personal shopper, and a former Navy SEAL through a company called Bayshore Global Management.

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AP/Tony Avelar

Source: Bloomberg and New Zealand Herald

Brins position at Google got a massive upgrade in August 2015, when Google became a subsidiary of a parent company named Alphabet. Brin transitioned from "director of special projects" at X to become the president of Alphabet.

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Re/code, Asa Mathat

Source: Business Insider

Nowadays, Brin is linked to the founder of a legal tech startup named Nicole Shanahan. The couple has been linked together since 2015 that same year Brin officially divorced Wojcicki although they didnt make their first public appearance until a year later.

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Kimberly White/Getty Images for Breakthrough Prize

Source: Business Insider

The couple has a baby girl together who was reportedly born in late 2018. It was recently reported that Brin and Shanahan secretly got married sometime last year, although the couple hasnt confirmed it.

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Taylor Hill/Getty Images

Source: Business Insider

On Tuesday, Brin and Page announced in a joint statement they were stepping down from their respective roles at Alphabet. "Weve never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think theres a better way to run the company," they wrote.

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Getty

Source: Business Insider

Brin will remain a member of Alphabets Board of Directors, and he still has controlling voting shares at the company. Theres no word on who will replace Brin as Alphabets president, or if the position will be eliminated as Sundar Pichai becomes CEO of both Google and Alphabet.

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Stephen Lam/Reuters

Source: Business Insider

Google cofounder Sergey Brin is stepping down as Alphabet's president. Take a look inside his crazy, eccentric, and wildly successful life (GOOG, GOOGL)

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Sergey Brin, 46, is now valued at an estimated $56.8 billion, according to Forbes. But he comes from more humble beginnings.

The family managed to get exit visas and flee the USSR when Brin was six. However, but his familys stressful, troubled experience left the Google cofounder with a lasting appreciation for democracy and freedom.

The Brin family ended up in Maryland, where the Google cofounder was enrolled in a Montessori school that emphasized independence and fostering creativity. Later on, Brin would discover that his Google cofounder, Larry Page, had also gone to a Montessori school.

Brin didnt revisit Moscow until he was 17, during a class trip led by his father. "Thank you for taking us all out of Russia," Brin told his dad. Spurred by a blossoming defiant streak, he threw pebbles at a police car, and almost got in serious trouble when the officers inside noticed.

Brin eventually earned his bachelors degree in mathematics and computer science at the University of Maryland, and then flew west to Stanford to get his Ph.D. in computer science. There, his love of high-adrenaline exercise flourished: He tried out skating, skiing, gymnastics, and even trapeze.

Brins resume from back in 1996, as he was working toward his Ph.D. at Stanford, is still available online. Before Google, Brin was more focused on making an algorithm for personalized movie recommendations, or finding a way to automatically detect cases of copyright infringement.

Brin met Google cofounder Larry Page at Stanford in 1995. The two reportedly found each other "obnoxious" at first, but they later became classmates and close friends who geeked out about computer science.

The founders created the first Google Doodle ever in 1998 to let people know they werent around to do damage control if the site broke because they were at Burning Man, the free-wheeling art festival in the middle of the Nevada desert.

For a long time, you couldnt spot Brin without the computerized Google Glass smart glasses. The New York Times reported that Brin may have played a big role in the products rocky launch in 2012, rushing it into the world before it was ready for public scrutiny.

Brin also has a wild sense of humor. "He conducted job interviews once dressed as a cow," early Google employee Douglas Edwards told Fast Company. As an April Fools joke, Brin once told pregnant Google employees that he would be offering birthing classes.

However, a 2018 book also said that Brin was known as "the Google playboy" during the companys early days. "He was known for getting his fingers caught in the cookie jar with employees that worked for the company in the masseuse room," a former employee said. "He got around."

Those who have known Brin attest to the fact that he truly does believe in using knowledge and power for the greater good. The Economist once called him the "Enlightenment Man," for his dedication to using reason and science to solve huge world problems.

"Obviously everyone wants to be successful, but I want to be looked back on as being very innovative, very trusted and ethical," Brin has said. "And ultimately making a big difference in the world."

Brin and Wojcicki have two children together, named Chloe and Benji. Both kids have the last name Wojin, a portmanteau of their parents last names.

To lower his chances of getting Parkinsons, Brin started exercising even more intensely and drinking green tea twice a day. Due to his health regimen and scientific progress, he estimated in 2010 that he now has only a ~10% chance of getting the disease.

However, Brins marriage to Wojcicki hit the rocks in 2013, and the couple separated. The couple officially finalized their divorce in June 2015 after eight years of marriage.

It later came out that around the time of his separation in 2013, Brin started an affair with a Google employee named Amanda Rosenberg, who was also in a relationship with another high-level Google executive at the same time.

In the more than 20 years since founding Google, Brin and Page have accumulated a great deal of dispensable income. In 2005, they bought a 50-person plane together. Brin also owns a superyacht, which he bought back in 2011 for $80 million.

Brin owns real estate in both New York City and Los Altos, California. Hes invested quite a bit of money in Los Altos through a real estate investment firm called Passerelle Investment Co., which has helped mom-and-pop, kid-friendly stores and cafes spring up or stay in business.

As of 2015, Brin employed at least 47 people to manage his personal affairsincluding a yacht captain, personal shopper, and a former Navy SEAL through a company called Bayshore Global Management.

Brins position at Google got a massive upgrade in August 2015, when Google became a subsidiary of a parent company named Alphabet. Brin transitioned from "director of special projects" at X to become the president of Alphabet.

Nowadays, Brin is linked to the founder of a legal tech startup named Nicole Shanahan. The couple has been linked together since 2015 that same year Brin officially divorced Wojcicki although they didnt make their first public appearance until a year later.

The couple has a baby girl together who was reportedly born in late 2018. It was recently reported that Brin and Shanahan secretly got married sometime last year, although the couple hasnt confirmed it.

On Tuesday, Brin and Page announced in a joint statement they were stepping down from their respective roles at Alphabet. "Weve never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think theres a better way to run the company," they wrote.

Brin will remain a member of Alphabets Board of Directors, and he still has controlling voting shares at the company. Theres no word on who will replace Brin as Alphabets president, or if the position will be eliminated as Sundar Pichai becomes CEO of both Google and Alphabet.

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Google cofounder Sergey Brin is stepping down as Alphabet's president. Take a look inside his crazy, eccentric, and wildly successful life (GOOG, GOOGL)

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Sergey Brin, 46, is now valued at an estimated $56.8 billion, according to Forbes. But he comes from more humble beginnings.

The family managed to get exit visas and flee the USSR when Brin was six. However, but his familys stressful, troubled experience left the Google cofounder with a lasting appreciation for democracy and freedom.

The Brin family ended up in Maryland, where the Google cofounder was enrolled in a Montessori school that emphasized independence and fostering creativity. Later on, Brin would discover that his Google cofounder, Larry Page, had also gone to a Montessori school.

Brin didnt revisit Moscow until he was 17, during a class trip led by his father. "Thank you for taking us all out of Russia," Brin told his dad. Spurred by a blossoming defiant streak, he threw pebbles at a police car, and almost got in serious trouble when the officers inside noticed.

Brin eventually earned his bachelors degree in mathematics and computer science at the University of Maryland, and then flew west to Stanford to get his Ph.D. in computer science. There, his love of high-adrenaline exercise flourished: He tried out skating, skiing, gymnastics, and even trapeze.

Brins resume from back in 1996, as he was working toward his Ph.D. at Stanford, is still available online. Before Google, Brin was more focused on making an algorithm for personalized movie recommendations, or finding a way to automatically detect cases of copyright infringement.

Brin met Google cofounder Larry Page at Stanford in 1995. The two reportedly found each other "obnoxious" at first, but they later became classmates and close friends who geeked out about computer science.

The founders created the first Google Doodle ever in 1998 to let people know they werent around to do damage control if the site broke because they were at Burning Man, the free-wheeling art festival in the middle of the Nevada desert.

For a long time, you couldnt spot Brin *without* the computerized Google Glass smart glasses. The New York Times reported that Brin may have played a big role in the products rocky launch in 2012, rushing it into the world before it was ready for public scrutiny.

Brin also has a wild sense of humor. "He conducted job interviews once dressed as a cow," early Google employee Douglas Edwards told Fast Company. As an April Fools joke, Brin once told pregnant Google employees that he would be offering birthing classes.

However, a 2018 book also said that Brin was known as "the Google playboy" during the companys early days. "He was known for getting his fingers caught in the cookie jar with employees that worked for the company in the masseuse room," a former employee said. "He got around."

Those who have known Brin attest to the fact that he truly does believe in using knowledge and power for the greater good. The Economist once called him the "Enlightenment Man," for his dedication to using reason and science to solve huge world problems.

"Obviously everyone wants to be successful, but I want to be looked back on as being very innovative, very trusted and ethical," Brin has said. "And ultimately making a big difference in the world."

Brin and Wojcicki have two children together, named Chloe and Benji. Both kids have the last name Wojin, a portmanteau of their parents last names.

To lower his chances of getting Parkinsons, Brin started exercising even more intensely and drinking green tea twice a day. Due to his health regimen and scientific progress, he estimated in 2010 that he now has only a ~10% chance of getting the disease.

However, Brins marriage to Wojcicki hit the rocks in 2013, and the couple separated. The couple officially finalized their divorce in June 2015 after eight years of marriage.

It later came out that around the time of his separation in 2013, Brin started an affair with a Google employee named Amanda Rosenberg, who was also in a relationship with another high-level Google executive at the same time.

In the more than 20 years since founding Google, Brin and Page have accumulated a great deal of dispensable income. In 2005, they bought a 50-person plane together. Brin also owns a superyacht, which he bought back in 2011 for $80 million.

Brin owns real estate in both New York City and Los Altos, California. Hes invested quite a bit of money in Los Altos through a real estate investment firm called Passerelle Investment Co., which has helped mom-and-pop, kid-friendly stores and cafes spring up or stay in business.

As of 2015, Brin employed at least 47 people to manage his personal affairsincluding a yacht captain, personal shopper, and a former Navy SEAL through a company called Bayshore Global Management.

Brins position at Google got a massive upgrade in August 2015, when Google became a subsidiary of a parent company named Alphabet. Brin transitioned from "director of special projects" at X to become the president of Alphabet.

Nowadays, Brin is linked to the founder of a legal tech startup named Nicole Shanahan. The couple has been linked together since 2015 that same year Brin officially divorced Wojcicki although they didnt make their first public appearance until a year later.

The couple has a baby girl together who was reportedly born in late 2018. It was recently reported that Brin and Shanahan secretly got married sometime last year, although the couple hasnt confirmed it.

On Tuesday, Brin and Page announced in a joint statement they were stepping down from their respective roles at Alphabet. "Weve never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think theres a better way to run the company," they wrote.

Brin will remain a member of Alphabets Board of Directors, and he still has controlling voting shares at the company. Theres no word on who will replace Brin as Alphabets president, or if the position will be eliminated as Sundar Pichai becomes CEO of both Google and Alphabet.

FOLLOW BUSINESS INSIDER AFRICA

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For a long time, you couldnt spot Brin without the computerized Google Glass smart glasses. The New York Times reported that Brin may have played a big role in the products rocky launch in 2012, rushing it into the world before it was ready for public scrutiny.