

Sergey Brin’s Resume In 1996. Before Founding Google - nycruz
http://immaturebusiness.com/1615/sergey-brins-resume-in-1996-before-founding-google/

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AndrewGCook
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.

~~~
nostrademons
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.

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synnik
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.

~~~
0x12
I'd give him his 20% time and hope he'd come up with the next big thing in
search.

Some people you fit to the company, others, you fit the company to them. Brin
is in the latter category. Rare, but they do exist.

~~~
silverbax88
I tend to take the advice of people who have run more companies than I have,
and they would not agree:

"I used to fall in love with everyone I interviewed and I'd say, 'We can make
anybody successful' or 'We can find a job for any talented person.' And that's
just completely wrong and a really bad idea. HR people should figure out job
descriptions. God forbid I should ever do that."

\- _Howard Tullman, founder of Experiencia, Tribeca Flashpoint Academy, The
Cobalt Group and Tunes.com (Tullman sold his first company in 1987 for $100
million)_

~~~
zwischenzug
I have to spend a good few weeks beating the phrase "he seems like a really
nice guy" out of my trainee interviewers.

"That's lovely for you and him - it's just _not relevant_. Can they do the
job?"

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

    
    
        <!--<H4>Objective:</H4>
        A large office, good pay, and very little work.
        Frequent expense-account trips to exotic lands would be a plus.-->

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memset
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!

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

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Aaronontheweb
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.

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mchusma
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.

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itswindy
"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
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
_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,

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billyarzt
I had no idea he was a UMD guy.

~~~
bane
Apparently even state school guys can go off to do amazing things.

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

