Profile: They introduced the term "googling" to the language via their hugely successful search engine. Now, the Internet's dynamic duo are expanding their web into Dublin, writes Jamie Smyth.
There was a carnival atmosphere down at the "Dublin Googleplex" earlier this week with the triumphant appearance of the latest technology billionaires to make it big on Wall Street, Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
The two founders of Google, who at 30 and 31 years of age are young enough to remember dropping out of college in the mid-1990s to set up the Internet search engine, were greeted with the kind of enthusiastic cheering that you expect to hear at a pop concert rather than the opening of a new corporate headquarters.
As founders of a $37 billion company, which in August performed one of the most hyped sales of shares in history, Brin and Page are fast assuming a cult status to rival any rock star. And there seems no stopping their creation, Google, which in just six years has established itself as the world's most popular Internet search engine by some distance.
More than 200 million Internet searches are conducted every day on Google. It is so popular that the word Google, which is a play on the mathematical term Googol - the number 1 followed by 100 zeros - has become a recognised verb meaning to search on the web.
Brin and Page, who met at Stanford University while studying for PhDs in computer science, developed the algorithms that enable Google to rank websites in order of relevance. The mathematics behind the search engine are hugely complex but the simplicity of the firm's website, which shuns the clutter of many Internet portals, made it a runaway success with Internet users.
"The huge success of Google is beyond all our expectations," said Brin at the official ribbon-cutting event for the firm's new European headquarters on Dublin's Barrow Street earlier this week. Reflecting his own laid-back take on life, he joked that his first thoughts about Google setting up in Ireland was that he would have easy access to Guinness. He also recounted how he used to play a modified version of the hugely popular computer game Doom, set in Trinity College.
"When I first came to Trinity in person last year I kept thinking I would open a door and find a demon standing there," said Brin, who atypically wore a grey suit for the occasion, but added his own touch of eccentricity by wearing Z Coil fashion trainers.
Despite a close relationship now and similar academic backgrounds in mathematics, Brin and Page apparently did not hit it off that well when they first met. Brin, who is the son of a Soviet mathematician and economist who moved from Moscow to the US in 1979, is more outgoing than Page, who tends to spend a lot of his time in the Google Laboratories developing new products.
Page's father, Carl Page, was an expert on computers and artificial intelligence, and Larry - who most observers agree is frighteningly intelligent - fits the stereotype of the "tech geek" more readily than the gregarious Brin.
According to Google watchers, Brin spends much of his time as the firm's ambassador and moral conscience. He allegedly coined the firm's ethics code, which comprises the three words, "Don't be evil".
Brin's youth, charm and eccentric style has helped Google to confound many of its critics, most recently the dour pinstripe suits that dominate Wall Street. In an attempt to wrest control of its stock market flotation from the dozen or so investment banks that dominate US finance, the firm sold its shares via a web auction, enabling small investors to get a larger slice of the pie. The auction turned out to be a shambles and raised less money for the firm than it should have, but Brin and Page have had the last laugh, seeing Google stock rise 60 per cent in the past two months.
Their personal wealth is now valued at more than $5 billion apiece, although both men, who are single, have resisted the temptation to go on a major shopping spree. Brin and Page both drive Toyotas and continue to cultivate the "boy next door" image that has served them well over the past six years.
"They are still kids, barely in their thirties," says Jim Hedger, an expert on the search engine industry who has followed Brin and Page's development. "While they have had to grow up a lot in the last year, their age shows in their words, attitudes and in some cases carelessness."
The Dublin "Googleplex", which is named after the firm's US headquarters in Silicon Valley, reflects their youthful outlook. A massage chair in the lobby - which was picked out by the founders on a trip to Japan - sets the tone for a workplace that is dominated by lava lamps, multicoloured bean bags and motorised scooters that whisk staff from one side of the building to another in just a few seconds.
"We aim to make coming to work at Google fun, a bit like going to school," Brin told the eclectic mix of silver-haired politicians, business executives and 150 youthful employees wearing T-shirts with the Google catchphrase "I feel lucky" emblazoned in bright green on the back. All the bright lights, music and hype caused one battle-hardened executive of an Irish technology company to comment that it all looked a bit like the excess of the dotcom bubble when firms burnt brightly for a short time before crashing dramatically to earth.
But behind all the razzmatazz, Google is a ruthlessly efficient business making profits of $100 million a year and $1.5 billion in revenue. And there are clear signs that control of Google is moving beyond Page and Brin to the suits in the company's boardroom.
The founders rarely do interviews nowadays and, in Dublin, Google hired RTÉ presenter John Bowman to do a light-hearted Q&A session rather than let Page and Brin take questions from news reporters.
"They just don't do one-to-one interviews and are not comfortable doing them," said one public relations executive, who admitted there was a sense that the firm didn't want them to talk.
That is hardly surprising given that an interview in Playboy with the founders published in August forced Google to postpone its stock market flotation. But it also signals that the rigours of maintaining a public listing are likely to severely curtail Brin and Page's freedom of expression and push Google toward accepting a more standard corporate culture.
Many critics argue that this has already happened at Google and warn that Brin and Page are not living up to their own "do no evil" ethics policy.
"Google is the biggest privacy invader in history," says Daniel Brandt, who operates the website www.google-watch.org, which monitors the actions of the company. "G-Mail (a free email service)" scans every email on its system for key words to direct advertising to you. It also stores every email, creating a huge database on people which may be used in the future for commercial or other governmental purposes."
His website also alleges that Google has struck a deal with the Chinese government to enable it to censor access to some websites, so that it is allowed to continue operating in that country. Brin has vigorously denied the allegations, which were made after China unblocked access to the Google search engine in 2003. But the controversy has highlighted Google's power as a key gatekeeper to the Internet and the pressures that it faces in living up to its ethical goals in the cut-throat world of business.
This week in Dublin Brin and Page reiterated their guiding mantra that they want to make the world a better place by making it easier to search for things on the web. But over the next year there will be some soul-searching as the two young billionaires get used to riding the corporate bandwagon at Google.
The Brin & Page File
Who are they?
Sergey Brin and Larry Page are the co-founders of Google, who became billionaires when the firm floated on the US Nasdaq in August this year.
Why are they in the news?
The two entrepreneurs were in Dublin this week to open the firm's European headquarters and preach the "Google Gospel" to staff, customers and the media.
Most appealing characteristics
A utilitarian outlook on life and the fact they both still drive Toyotas despite their huge wealth.
Least appealing characteristics
A growing pimpernel-like relationship with the media.
Most likely to say?
"I'm feeling lucky" and "Don't be evil."
Least likely to say?
"Let's bring in the Wall Street guys to show us how it's done."