Larry Page Biography
Larry Page’s biography starts in Lansing, Michigan, where he was born on 26 March 1973 to two computer-science teachers. He studied at the University of Michigan and Stanford, where a research project on web links became Google, founded with Sergey Brin in 1998. He ran Google and then Alphabet until 2019 1.
Larry Page’s early life
Lawrence Edward Page was born in Lansing, Michigan, on 26 March 1973 1. His father, Carl Victor Page Sr., held a PhD in computer science and was a professor at Michigan State University; his mother, Gloria, taught computer programming at the university’s Lyman Briggs College 1. His parents divorced when he was about eight, and he stayed close to both.
Computers were part of the house. When Page was six, his father brought home an early personal computer, an Exidy Sorcerer, and Page soon mastered it 1. His older brother, Carl Jr., taught him to take things apart to see how they worked. He attended Okemos Montessori School, spent two summers at the Interlochen Center for the Arts playing saxophone, and graduated from East Lansing High School in 1991 1.
Larry Page’s education
| Institution | Years | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| East Lansing High School | until 1991 | Graduated 1 |
| University of Michigan | 1991-1995 | BSE in computer engineering, with honours 1 |
| Stanford University | 1995-1998 | MS in computer science; entered the PhD programme and left to run Google 1 |
At Michigan he built an inkjet printer out of Lego and proposed a monorail-style transit system for the campus 1.
How Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google
At Stanford, Page chose to study the web’s link structure for his PhD. His project, called BackRub, looked at which pages linked to which, on the idea that a link works like an academic citation 1. Sergey Brin joined him, and together they built PageRank, which ranks a page by the number and importance of pages linking to it.
An early version of the search engine ran on Stanford’s website in August 1996 1. In 1998 they published “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine” and incorporated Google, named after “googol”, the number 1 followed by 100 zeros 1. The Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote a $100,000 cheque to “Google, Inc.” before the company even existed as a legal entity 1.
The company’s first office was the garage of Susan Wojcicki’s house in Menlo Park, rented for $1,700 a month 1. By June 2000 Google had indexed one billion web addresses 1.
Larry Page as Google’s CEO
Page was Google’s first chief executive, with Brin as president 1. In 2001 investors brought in Eric Schmidt as chairman and then CEO, and Page became president of products 1. Google listed on Nasdaq in August 2004, making Page a billionaire at about 30 1.
During this period Google launched Gmail and Maps, and in 2005 Page led the $50 million purchase of Android, which became the world’s most-used phone operating system 1. He and Brin shared the Marconi Prize in 2004 and were elected to the US National Academy of Engineering 1.
On 4 April 2011 Page returned as CEO 1. He reorganised the company, simplified its products and bought Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, mainly for its patents; Google sold Motorola’s phone business to Lenovo in 2014 for $2.9 billion 1. In 2013 he launched Calico, a company researching ageing 1.
Creating Alphabet
On 10 August 2015 Page announced Alphabet, a new holding company with Google as its largest part and separate “Other Bets” such as Waymo, Calico and Verily 1. Page became Alphabet’s chief executive and Sundar Pichai became Google’s.
On 3 December 2019 Page and Brin announced they were stepping back from management, and Pichai became CEO of Alphabet as well 1. Page stayed on the board and as a controlling shareholder.
Larry Page’s voice condition
In May 2013 Page disclosed that both of his vocal cords were partly paralysed, the left since 1999 and the right since 2012, which affected his speaking voice 1. He gave a reported $20 million or more to a voice-research programme in Boston and stepped back from Google’s quarterly earnings calls 1.
After Alphabet: new ventures
Since stepping back, Page has kept a low profile. He backed the flying-car companies Kitty Hawk and Opener; Kitty Hawk closed in 2022 and its work continued at Wisk, a venture with Boeing 1. In 2025 reports revealed Dynatomics, a start-up he is building to use AI to design products optimised for factory production, run by former Kitty Hawk technology chief Chris Anderson 2.
In December 2025, as California prepared a ballot measure for a one-time 5% tax on billionaires who were residents on 1 January 2026, Page moved his family office and several companies to Delaware and bought homes in Miami 3. Californians vote on the measure, Proposition 40, on 3 November 2026 3.