Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin made an incredible fortune thanks to the rise of technology stocks.
Amid the global COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founders of U.S. giant Google, joined the exclusive list of six other billionaires: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett.
Page is worth u$s103.6 billion, while Brin is worth u$s100.2 billion, according to estimates from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Brin’s fortune grew by u$s20.4 billion in the year to April 2021, while Page’s increased by u$s21.2 billion, according to Bloomberg calculations.
Tech stocks rose rapidly in value since the pandemic began, with those of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, up more than 80% over the past year.
The pair own controlling shares in Alphabet, with more than 50% of the total votes between them. The company generated u$s46.43 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2020, with less traffic acquisition costs, up from u$s37.57 billion a year ago. Alphabet attributed this to people using YouTube and Google search more during the pandemic.
Page and Brin have moved away from Google and Alphabet.
Page and Brin started Google in 1996 while they were doctoral students at Stanford University along with an unofficial “third founder,” who left before it became a company. It is now the most widely used website in the world.
In 2015, the couple founded the holding company Alphabet to manage both Google and other subsidiaries, including Waymo, DeepMind, and Sidewalk Labs. Brin became chairman of the new company and Page became its CEO. Page appointed Sundar Pichai to take over as CEO of Google.
In 2019, Page and Brin announced plans to retire from Alphabet and appointed Pichai as CEO. Pichai still consults with the co-founders regularly, although they had an increasingly hands-off approach, Insider’s Hugh Langley reported.
Page and Brin received $1 salaries during their time at Google. In addition to spending their fortunes on mansions, superyachts, and a 50-person jet, the duo also led a $40 million investment round in Elon Musk’s Tesla in 2006.
