6 ms·

Sergey Brin’s Resume In 1996. Before Founding Google

98 points by nycruz 15y ago

AndrewGCook 15y ago
I just heard Drew Houston of DropBox talk in Boston at StartupBootcamp and this resume rings true to what he said. The reality is that every founder starts in the same place and at the same point, which is completely clueless. Apple, Google, Yahoo, Oracle, Facebook and many others were started by first time founders in their 20’s. Facebook was just a project that Zuckerbug was hacking on, and he didn’t’ set out to redefine the face of communication. He had done 7-8 other projects before that, and the difference with Facebook was that 90%+ of Harvard students sign up in two days. Something all new founders should remember is that no one is born a founder.
- satjot 15y ago
  The constant among those companies/founders is that they were started by technical/engineer founders. IMHO, tech companies should at least have 1 technical co-founder. I'm sure someone has data around the correlation between success of web/internet companies and whether or not they had a technical co-founder.
- nycruz 15y ago
  I completely agree with you. Most of the time founders have no clue of what they are doing or how to do it. Most start with a simple idea or problem to solve and then start doing something about it with no plans or roadmap. Like Google for example, it started as a simple phD project and is now the most visited website in the world worth billions of dollars. Back in 1998 Brin and Page had no idea of what they would accomplish with Google. Or Mark, which coded a website that million of coders could code. The difference is that he met the right people and persevered. But that is why it is so fun to be a founder, you never know what to expect or how far you can go. Its scary and fun.
- nostrademons 15y ago
  That's sorta true, but only applies to specific technical & domain skills needed by your industry. There are a lot of "soft" skills needed to found a successful company, and entrepreneurs start in wildly different places for this. DropBox was Drew's second company, and I remember him saying that his experience with the first and the intervening jobs was what made him so determined to do it "right" this time and have the persistence to stick it out. Facebook was Zuckerburg's third company; he'd already had acquisition offers from Microsoft for his second (Synapse Media Player). Apple was Steve & Steve's second company together; the first was selling blue-boxes. Google was started by first-time founders, but they were first-time founders who had the background and upbringing to have confidence in themselves and believe they could change the world.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
synnik 15y ago
Not to nitpick, but founding Google doesn't automatically qualify you for a job at any large company, as the article states. Not that I would refuse him a job... but it would require the same interview process as anyone, because I need to find out what he knows about my industry, what his current skills truly are, learn his philosophies, and find out how he would fit culturally. Even brilliant people are sometimes crappy fits for the specific roles a large company may have to offer.
- silverbax88 15y ago
  Yes, sort of like Michael Jordan playing baseball.
  - andrewtbham 15y ago
    jordan actually could have been a great baseball player. there is a documentary about it and people who were initially very skeptical eventually changed their mind. he would have gone to the majors, but there was a strike. this example is more in the camp of hire great people if you can.
    - silverbax88 15y ago
      That's really overstating Jordan's future as a baseball player. Jordan was never seriously considered a major league player. He's much closer to being a pro golfer than a major league baseball player.
      - detst 15y ago
        This is getting way OT but I can assure you the odds of him becoming even an occasional PGA Tour player are not even remotely as good as they were for him to make an MLB roster (of course, at the time he retired from basketball). If the GP is overstating, you are massively overstating his golfing abilities.
        silverbax88 15y ago
Aaronontheweb 15y ago
This was very reassuring / inspiring for me... Goes to show you that we all have to start somewhere and we shouldn't spend our formative years worrying about experience and credentials before we try to start something.
itswindy 15y ago
"The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users," so let's make some more money. Let's not send visitors to sites anymore! Brilliant!
- chwahoo 15y ago
  I'm having a hard time parsing your post. The passage you quoted concerns cases where advertisers might not like the material on sites that rank highly in search results. > so let's make some more money. Let's not send visitors to sites anymore! You seem to be accusing Google of something, but I can't tell what. (Google sends me to sites all the time. I'm also not aware of accusations that advertisers affect results.)
  - itswindy 15y ago
    Google sends me to sites all the time The trend is your friend, but understand that ads look similar to normal results to many people. I'm also not aware of accusations that advertisers affect results.) Use your imagination or ask Larry and Sergey what they mean by it,
billyarzt 15y ago
I had no idea he was a UMD guy.
- bane 15y ago
  Apparently even state school guys can go off to do amazing things.
mchusma 15y ago
I think Stanford and his experience at Wolfram would be bright spots on any resume. What this resume does is imply that he is very smart, which is more important than experience for any startup.
rogercosseboom 15y ago
While reading this all I can think of is... would pg & co. fund Sergey if he applied to YC?
Blunt 15y ago
really, now, what is the point to all this?
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
memset 15y ago
To me, the interesting thing about this is that his resume is so... so ordinary. Ordinary in the sense that there are a great many smart graduate students who have done some interesting summer internships, have some neat projects, and are working on publications. So here we have a guy who, on paper, is basically like any of the rest of us, and he decides to start his own business. The links on his page aren't there so that he can prove that he is involved in the community so that he could get a phone screen for another job so that he could impress an interviewer with his great whiteboard-tree-manipulation skills. (I mean yes, obviously it is a resume, which serves that purpose, but sans all of the fancy stuff you read about on HN to enhance your professional identity.) Which, for me, is an affirmation (inspiration?) that maybe rather than spending my time memorizing CLRS or forking another github project in order to build a credential, I should write my own algorithm, create my own github repo, and build not another paper credential but something great. Thanks for posting!
Aramgutang 15y ago
Viewing the source on the resumé page reveals a commented-out section

98 points by nycruz 15y ago

I just heard Drew Houston of DropBox talk in Boston at StartupBootcamp and this resume rings true to what he said. The reality is that every founder starts in the same place and at the same point, which is completely clueless. Apple, Google, Yahoo, Oracle, Facebook and many others were started by first time founders in their 20’s. Facebook was just a project that Zuckerbug was hacking on, and he didn’t’ set out to redefine the face of communication. He had done 7-8 other projects before that, and the difference with Facebook was that 90%+ of Harvard students sign up in two days. Something all new founders should remember is that no one is born a founder.

satjot 15y ago
The constant among those companies/founders is that they were started by technical/engineer founders. IMHO, tech companies should at least have 1 technical co-founder. I'm sure someone has data around the correlation between success of web/internet companies and whether or not they had a technical co-founder.
nycruz 15y ago
I completely agree with you. Most of the time founders have no clue of what they are doing or how to do it. Most start with a simple idea or problem to solve and then start doing something about it with no plans or roadmap. Like Google for example, it started as a simple phD project and is now the most visited website in the world worth billions of dollars. Back in 1998 Brin and Page had no idea of what they would accomplish with Google. Or Mark, which coded a website that million of coders could code. The difference is that he met the right people and persevered. But that is why it is so fun to be a founder, you never know what to expect or how far you can go. Its scary and fun.
nostrademons 15y ago
That's sorta true, but only applies to specific technical & domain skills needed by your industry. There are a lot of "soft" skills needed to found a successful company, and entrepreneurs start in wildly different places for this. DropBox was Drew's second company, and I remember him saying that his experience with the first and the intervening jobs was what made him so determined to do it "right" this time and have the persistence to stick it out. Facebook was Zuckerburg's third company; he'd already had acquisition offers from Microsoft for his second (Synapse Media Player). Apple was Steve & Steve's second company together; the first was selling blue-boxes. Google was started by first-time founders, but they were first-time founders who had the background and upbringing to have confidence in themselves and believe they could change the world.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

synnik 15y ago

Not to nitpick, but founding Google doesn't automatically qualify you for a job at any large company, as the article states. Not that I would refuse him a job... but it would require the same interview process as anyone, because I need to find out what he knows about my industry, what his current skills truly are, learn his philosophies, and find out how he would fit culturally. Even brilliant people are sometimes crappy fits for the specific roles a large company may have to offer.

silverbax88 15y ago
Yes, sort of like Michael Jordan playing baseball.
- andrewtbham 15y ago
  jordan actually could have been a great baseball player. there is a documentary about it and people who were initially very skeptical eventually changed their mind. he would have gone to the majors, but there was a strike. this example is more in the camp of hire great people if you can.
  - silverbax88 15y ago
    That's really overstating Jordan's future as a baseball player. Jordan was never seriously considered a major league player. He's much closer to being a pro golfer than a major league baseball player.
    - detst 15y ago
      This is getting way OT but I can assure you the odds of him becoming even an occasional PGA Tour player are not even remotely as good as they were for him to make an MLB roster (of course, at the time he retired from basketball). If the GP is overstating, you are massively overstating his golfing abilities.
      - silverbax88 15y ago

Aaronontheweb 15y ago

This was very reassuring / inspiring for me... Goes to show you that we all have to start somewhere and we shouldn't spend our formative years worrying about experience and credentials before we try to start something.

itswindy 15y ago

"The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users," so let's make some more money. Let's not send visitors to sites anymore! Brilliant!

chwahoo 15y ago
I'm having a hard time parsing your post. The passage you quoted concerns cases where advertisers might not like the material on sites that rank highly in search results. > so let's make some more money. Let's not send visitors to sites anymore! You seem to be accusing Google of something, but I can't tell what. (Google sends me to sites all the time. I'm also not aware of accusations that advertisers affect results.)
- itswindy 15y ago
  Google sends me to sites all the time The trend is your friend, but understand that ads look similar to normal results to many people. I'm also not aware of accusations that advertisers affect results.) Use your imagination or ask Larry and Sergey what they mean by it,

billyarzt 15y ago

I had no idea he was a UMD guy.

bane 15y ago
Apparently even state school guys can go off to do amazing things.

mchusma 15y ago

I think Stanford and his experience at Wolfram would be bright spots on any resume. What this resume does is imply that he is very smart, which is more important than experience for any startup.

rogercosseboom 15y ago

While reading this all I can think of is... would pg & co. fund Sergey if he applied to YC?

Blunt 15y ago

really, now, what is the point to all this?

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

memset 15y ago

To me, the interesting thing about this is that his resume is so... so ordinary. Ordinary in the sense that there are a great many smart graduate students who have done some interesting summer internships, have some neat projects, and are working on publications. So here we have a guy who, on paper, is basically like any of the rest of us, and he decides to start his own business. The links on his page aren't there so that he can prove that he is involved in the community so that he could get a phone screen for another job so that he could impress an interviewer with his great whiteboard-tree-manipulation skills. (I mean yes, obviously it is a resume, which serves that purpose, but sans all of the fancy stuff you read about on HN to enhance your professional identity.) Which, for me, is an affirmation (inspiration?) that maybe rather than spending my time memorizing CLRS or forking another github project in order to build a credential, I should write my own algorithm, create my own github repo, and build not another paper credential but something great. Thanks for posting!

Aramgutang 15y ago

Viewing the source on the resumé page reveals a commented-out section