Larry Page and Sergey Brin may have only taken salaries of $1 during their time at Google, but they’re still two of the richest people in the world.

Page and Brin are a bit less rich after the search engine’s parent company reported lower than expected fourth-quarter revenue on Monday. Page’s net worth fell $1.9 billion, while Brin’s dropped $1.8 billion, according to Forbes.

Both Page and Brin are among Alphabet’s largest shareholders, valuing their combined fortune at $126.9 billion, according to the Forbes Billionaires List. In December, the billionaire pair announced they were stepping down from their posts atop Alphabet, writing that the company was “well-established” and “no longer need two CEOs and a president.

Here’s a look at how Page and Brin made and spend their fortunes.


Sergey Brin and Larry Page founded Google (now owned by parent company Alphabet) in 1998 in a garage in Menlo Park, California.

Foto: sourceMichael Nagle/Getty Images

Source: Business Insider


In a letter in December, the billionaire duo announced that they would be stepping back from their roles as CEO and president of Alphabet.

Foto: sourceChris Hondros/Getty Images

"We've never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think there's a better way to run the company," the letter reads. "And Alphabet no longer needs two CEOs and a President." Google CEO Sundar Pichai will be taking over as the CEO of Alphabet.


Page was born in 1973 to two computer science professors at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. Even at a young age, he enjoyed taking machines apart and trying to put them back together to understand how they functioned.

Foto: sourceReuters

Source: "Larry Page"


Page went to the University of Michigan for undergrad. While there, he was a member of the solar car team, proposed an overhaul of the school's bus system, and developed other business plans.

Foto: sourceChris Hondros/Getty Images

Source: Business Insider


Brin and Page met in 1995, when Brin toured Page around Stanford University. Brin was a second-year graduate student in Stanford's computer science department and Page was considering attending. They reportedly both found each other "obnoxious" at first, but they became classmates.

Foto: sourceLinda A. Cicero/Stanford University/Facebook

Source: Wired


Brin, the more gregarious of the two founders, was also born in 1973 to two scientists. But he was born in the Soviet Union, where his family faced anti-Semitism.

Foto: sourceGetty Images / Justin Sullivan

Source: Wired, Moment


Brin came to the US when he was six and quickly proved his academic prowess. At 19, he graduated from the University of Maryland as a major in math and computer science.

Foto: sourceStephen Lam/Reuters

Source: Moment


Despite their initial spats, Brin and Page started working together on an interesting idea Page had about cataloging every link on the internet. BackRub, as it was called at its inception in 1996, took off.

Foto: sourceRalph Orlowski/Getty Images

Source: Business Insider


After dropping out of Stanford, the two founded Google in 1998 in this garage.

Foto: sourceJustin Sullivan/Getty Images

Source: CNBC


Twenty years later, Google is much more than just the No. 1 website in the world and the most-used search engine. It spans video content, mobile technology, education, digital libraries, and even self-driving cars.

Foto: sourceMike Windle/Getty Images for Google

Source: Alexa


Here's how the successful duo spends their fortune.

Foto: sourceChris Hondros/Getty Images

In 2005, Page bought a $7.2 million home in Old Palo Alto. The home, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was built from 1931 to 1941 for Bay Area artist Pedro de Lemos.

Foto: sourceGoogle Maps Screenshot

Sources: Gawker, Palo Alto Stanford Heritage


At 9,000 square feet, the two-story home was built in the Spanish Colonial Revival style. It's constructed of stucco and tile around a courtyard. Parts of the home were salvaged from a chapel that was partially destroyed during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Foto: sourceGerosch/Wikimedia Commons

Source: Palo Alto Stanford Heritage


In 2009, after Page bought the historic home, he started buying adjacent properties to construct an environmentally friendly estate. The 6,000-square-foot home has a roof garden with solar panels and four bedrooms.

Foto: An aerial view of the block where Page has been purchasing homes.sourceGoogle Maps Screenshot

Source: The Mercury News


We don't know much about what Page's home looks like on the inside, but we do know that sometimes his billionaire buddy Elon Musk, who doesn't own property in Silicon Valley, sleeps over.

Foto: sourceAP

Source: Business Insider


"He'll e-mail and say, 'I don't know where to stay tonight. Can I come over?'" Page told Ashlee Vance for her book, "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future." "I haven't given him a key or anything yet."

Foto: Google co-founder Larry Page speaks with people at his lunch table during the Clinton Global Initiative in New York September 27, 2007.sourceREUTERS/Chip East

Source: Business Insider


Brin has even swankier digs in New York City's tony West Village, where he's neighbors with celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker and Tiger Woods. He bought a 3,457-square-foot penthouse there for $8.5 million in 2008.

Foto: sourceFrazer Harrison/Getty Images for Mercedes-Benz

Source: Zillow Porchlight, Business Insider


The two-story, three-bedroom penthouse has a 1,200-square-foot wraparound terrace with views of lower Manhattan. The kitchen is outfitted with custom Moroccan tiles and top-of-the-line appliances.

Foto: sourceGoogle Maps Screenshot

Source: Zillow Porchlight, Zillow


Brin also owns an estate in an undisclosed location in Los Altos Hills, California. Here's what a typical house there looks like.

Foto: Brin's home not pictured.sourceBen Freedman/Flickr

Source: The Wall Street Journal


In 2015, Brin was rumored to be looking at an even more impressive space — a 30,000-square-foot mansion in ritzy Alpine, New Jersey. With an indoor basketball court, fitness center, and a pool, the incredible house would have cost Brin $48.88 million.

Not much is known about the Google cofounders' private vacations, but they are regulars at Burning Man. To disguise their identities, they've worn full spandex body suits, according to published reports.

Foto: sourceJim Urquhart/Reuters

Source: Business Insider


These guys don't just have a private plane — they also have an $82 million private airport. Google began building its own private airport near the San Jose airport in 2014.

Foto: sourceJustin Sullivan/Getty Images

Source: Fast Company


Page doesn't just dabble in typical aircraft. While we don't know how often Page himself is taking the products for a spin, he does fund three flying car companies.

Foto: sourceKitty Hawk

Source: The Verge


Despite his lofty ambitions, Page still reportedly drives a Toyota Prius.

Foto: sourceToyota

Source: Reuters


Page and Brin both have been taken with a slightly more upscale eco-friendly vehicle: Tesla. The duo led an investment round of $40 million in Elon Musk's Tesla all the way back in 2006.

Foto: sourceReuters/Noah Berger

Source: Tesla Motors


Brin was the fourth person to receive a Tesla Model X Crossover SUV in 2015 when it was first released — he snagged a white one.

Foto: sourceJustin Sullivan/Getty Images

Source: Business Insider


Today, a Model X with seven seats, full self-driving capacity, and max performance costs $151,000.

Foto: sourceBenjamin Zhang/Business Insider

Source: Tesla


Brin's Tesla was the subject of what was popularly speculated to be an elaborate April Fool's Day prank in 2013.

Foto: sourceRyan Mac/Twitter

Source: Business Insider, Wired


Reportedly, some of Google's employees vinyl-wrapped Brin's Model S, added rainbow eyelashes, and a Batman decal and wings.

Foto: sourceNathan Johns/Google+

Source: Forbes


The best part of Brin's Model S, though, has got to be the Google Chrome rims.

Foto: sourceNathan Johns/Google+

Source: Forbes


Page took his interest in Tesla even further in 2014 when said he would donate all of his billions to Elon Musk — rather than a charity, his family, or his own business.

Foto: sourceAndrew Kelly/Reuters

Source: Business Insider


Page would likely also give some money to his two children and his wife, Lucy Page Southworth. Southworth is a biomedical informatics researcher, and their children were born in 2009 and 2011. (Page is so private that we don't even know if the younger child is a boy or a girl. The older child is a boy.)

Foto: sourceSteve Jennings/Getty Images for MerchantCantos

Source: CNN


Brin also has two children with his former wife Anne Wojcicki, the cofounder and CEO of $1.5 billion personal genetics company 23andMe.

Foto: sourceKevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Source: Business Insider, Techcrunch


Brin's and Wojcicki's children don't exactly live in the lap of luxury that their parents' wild successes would indicate. As Wojcicki told The New York Times in 2017, she wants to protect her children from the "insanity" of the billionaire lifestyle — the kids do their own laundry, for instance.

Foto: sourceDonald Bowers/Getty Images for The Weinstein Company

Source: The New York Times


The duo is among the most philanthropic billionaires in the US. From 2000 to 2017, Brin has donated $37.5 billion (6% of his fortune) and Page $38.5 billion (4%). In 2018 however, both Brin and Page gave 0% of their net worths to charity.

Foto: sourceBen Margot/AP Images

Source: CNBC, Business Insider


And Brin has been reportedly building an entire flying airship at a NASA research center near Mountain View, California. The project costs between $100 and $150 million — and is funded entirely by Brin.

Foto: sourceOleg Alexandrov/Wikimedia Commons

Source: The Guardian


The airship will measure more than 600 feet. Sources say Brin pictures the airship delivering goods and food on humanitarian missions, as well as being an "air yacht" for the billionaire's friends and family.

Foto: sourceU.S. Air Force/Tiffany DeNault via Getty Images

Source: The Guardian


Brin also spends his money on a variety of thrill-seeking hobbies.

Foto: sourceGoogle+, Sergey Brin

Source: Business Insider


Brin is a lover of roller hockey, ultimate Frisbee, gymnastics, and high-flying trapeze. He has been spotted at advanced trapeze classes at the Circus Warehouse in New York City, which costs $1,760 per month.

Foto: sourceBruno Vincent/Getty Images

Source: Business Insider, Circus Warehouse


Page has been known to kite board — sometimes with Richard Branson.

Foto: sourceSergio Camacho/Getty Images

Source: Business Insider


Brin pays 47 workers' salaries, who all work for him and his family — including ex-bankers who manage his philanthropy and finances, a fitness coordinator, a yacht captain, an archivist, and a photographer.

Foto: sourceJustin Sullivan/Getty Images

Source: Bloomberg


For these two 46-year-olds, the combined net worth of more than $126 billion is a far cry from their humble beginnings in the garage in Menlo Park where it all began.

Foto: sourceRalph Orlowski/Getty Images

Source: Business Insider