25 Visionaries Who Created Empires From Virtually Nothing

Brin and Page, like so many tech entrepreneurs before them, felt the unshakable urge to leave college for bigger and better things. For these two aspiring Stanford PhD’s, that thing was Google. This hailed the beginning of a major technological shift on the Internet. In his eye-opening book “The Search”, Wired.com editor John Battelle explains the story of how “Google rewrote the rules of business and transformed our culture.” Of course, life wasn’t so easy for the pair before their billion-dollar IPO in 2004. In fact, Google might have never progressed past the point of an ambitious dorm room project if not for a $100,000 check from Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim. Today, the trailblazing success of Google has enabled Brin and Page to reach billionaire status by their 30’s.