1. He turned his dorm room into a machine lab
When Larry Page was in Stanford, he turned his dorm room into a machine laboratory, where he, along with his partner Sergey Brin, extracted spare parts from inexpensive computers to create a device which connects their search engine with Stanford's broadband campus network. When Page's room became full of equipment, they then converted Brin's dorm room into an office and a programming centre, where they tested their search engine designs on the web. Eventually, their not so little operation had caused Stanford a lot of problems within its computing infrastructure. However, Page and Brin's search engine grew in popularity among Stanford users and eventually in August 1996, the initial version of Google, limited to the Stanford University website, was first made available for internet users.
2. He created a Lego printer in college
Page holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan, and did his Masters at Stanford University. When he was in Michigan, Page created an inkjet printer made of Lego bricks after thinking it was possible to print cheap posters on a large scale using inkjet cartridges. Page reverse-engineered the ink cartridge and designed the electronics and physics into it to make it work. Page also proposed to the school to replace its bus system with some sort of a rapid rail transit system, which was a driverless transport mode that ran through a monorail, and provided separate cars for each passenger.
3. He asked money from friends and family
Page and his partner Brin solicited funds from faculty members, family and friends to scrape enough money to buy a few servers, and rent a garage in Menlo Park, California. A few months after, Page and Brin received a $100,000 cheque from Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim but had nowhere to deposit the money since Google had not been officially incorporated yet, which meant technically, they still didn't exist. In 1998, Brin and Page finally incorporated Google, Inc. which had the initial domain name of "Googol" which was derived from a number that consists of one, followed by one hundred zeros - which represented the vast amount of data that their new search engine was intended to explore. After incorporation, Larry Page then appointed himself as CEO, while Sergey Brin was named Google's co-founder and served as Google's president.
4. He didn't like to delegate
Page had a unique but sensible management style on his first tenure as CEO at Google. He wrote his management preferences for his team in a document to be used as reference.
Don't delegate. Do everything you can yourself to make things go faster.
Don't get in the way if you're not adding value. Let the people doing the work talk to each other while you go do something else.
Don't be a bureaucrat.
Ideas are more important than age. Just because someone is junior doesn't mean they don't deserve respect and cooperation.
The worst thing you can do is to stop someone from doing something by saying, "No. Period." If you say no, you have to help them find a better way to get it done.
5. His childhood home was a mess of science and technology magazines
Page was born on March 26, 1973 and grew up in Lansing, Michigan with his father, who worked as a computer science professor at Michigan State University, and mother who taught computer programming at Lyman Briggs College. Page described his childhood home as messy and full of clutter, with computers, science and technology magazines all over the place - an environment which he immersed himself in. According to writer Nicholas Carlson, the combination of Page's home environment and the instruction of his computer programmer parents, fostered a lot of creativity and invention within Page. Page started tinkering with first-generation personal computers at age six, and became famous for being the first kid in his elementary school to submit an assignment from a word processor.
6. Elon Musk sleeps at his house
Over the years, Musk and Page have become close friends because of their shared interests in renewable energy technology. Page said Elon sleeps at his house when he's in town and that they don't stop brainstorming ideas about renewable energy. Page is a major investor in Tesla motors which makes the involvement of Google promote adoption of plug-in hybrid electric cars for Tesla. Page has also often mentioned that Google is fully invested in Elon Musk's mission to bring people to space and make humans a multiplanetary species.
7. The 10X Mentality
In 2013, Page participated in an interview with Wired where writer Steven Levy discussed Larry Page's 10X mentality. Apparently, Google employees are expected to create products or services that are at least 10 times better than their competitors. Astro Teller, head of Google X, also commented on the interview that 10X is the core to Page's personality and that Page constantly focuses on where the next 10X will come from. Page told Levy that the success of YouTube and Android were examples of crazy ideas that investors didn't initially take seriously but were 10X better than other competitors at the time of their conceptualisation.
8. Page used to like harsh and intense arguments
In 2013, Page created a new "zero tolerance for fighting" policy within Google, which was the complete opposite of how he wanted things done originally. During the early days of company, Page would often use his harsh and intense arguments with Brin as an example of senior management style. Page said he has long changed this mentality since he stepped down as CEO from Google, and would now like a more harmonious team dynamic. The tech billionaire has highlighted that to be able to achieve their ambitious goals, teamwork and the reduction of feuds within the company is crucial to their success.
9. He wanted Google super fast
Page wanted the company to focus on making Google's search engine super fast, arguing that the faster the search engine returned answers, the more it would be used. He fretted over milliseconds and drove mostly all of his engineers, from those who created algorithms, to those who built data centres, to strategize and think more about lag times. Also, Page strictly wanted Google's home page famously sparse and minimalist in it's design, to ensure search results loaded faster. One of the company's top objectives moving forward was the identifying and discontinuation of less important offerings, which allowed Google to execute and focus more on the things that matter most.
10. He kept a pen and pad by the bed
Speaking at one of the University of Michigan's commencement exercises, Larry Page said that by having a pen and pad beside your bed, you can write down ideas straight away, especially when they come to you as a dream. In the 90s, a 23 year old Larry page woke up in the middle of the night with a thought - "What if we could download the whole web and just keep the links". Page said he immediately wrote the idea on paper and has acted on it relentlessly ever since. The Google co-founder said that million-dollar ideas only come once in a while, it is very important to capture those ideas on paper when they strike you in the middle of the night.
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