Google's billionaire cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page dropped a surprise visit on a PhD student who sits in Page's old office at Stanford

Isobel Asher Hamilton

December 9, 2019 1:03 PM

Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin paid a surprise visit to a Stanford PhD student on Friday night.

Larry Page Sergey Brin

The student occupies what used to be Page's old office when he was doing his own PhD at Stanford, where he met Brin in 1995.
The tech billionaires told the student they were taking a "trip down memory lane" after stepping down from their roles at Google's parent company Alphabet.
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A PhD student at Stanford got a big surprise on Friday night.

Jacob Ritchie is currently doing a PhD in computer science at Stanford University. He tweeted a picture on Friday night showing that Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin had dropped by his office.

"Larry and Sergey were visiting Stanford to 'take a trip down memory lane' after stepping down on Tuesday from their roles at Google and Alphabet," Ritchie said in a follow-up tweet.

Page and Brin met in 1995 while both doing computer science PhDs at Stanford, and went on to found Google in 1998. The pair announced they were stepping down from their roles at Google's parent company , Alphabet, this month and remain two of the richest people on the planet.

As it happens, Ritchie now occupies what used to be Page's office, and the pair apparently knocked on his door while he was working late "on the off chance that there was someone inside."

According to Ritchie, Page at the time got the office after Brin "illicitly" gave him the master key to the building early, thereby allowing him to choose the best desk.

Ritchie tweeted that the surprise visit was "an incredibly surreal and amazing experience."

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