Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, have both started retirement since they retired from daily management of Google in 2019. Unlike Page, who chose to live in seclusion on a private island, Brin became a "party animal".

The two founders of Google chose different retirement lives, so how did Page and Brin take advantage of their newfound freedom? A closer look at their world reveals two distinct empires, each marked with the manager's own interests and tendencies. Brin is a very curious philanthropist, pursuing curiosity and humanitarian projects. Page used his vast wealth to stay out of the public eye and handed over the day-to-day supervision of his company to a small group of trusted deputies.

But on core issues, this has one of the most important similarities for former partners: they all rely on an intricate network of corporate entities and family offices to minimize their tax obligations, protect them from responsibility and protect their wealth from public attention. Their business adventures and personal styles may be different, but their ultimate goal is the same: to pursue their own interests freely without supervision or restriction.

In sunny Palo Alto, Calif., not far from the coastal highway, the hermit has an obscure single-story building between Starbucks and Shell gas stations. Its ground is dotted with birch trees, round flowerpots and a fountain in front of it. Its owner shielded his peeping eyes with frosted glass, and his elegant appearance was covered with security cameras. The name on the door, 1101 LLC, does not reveal the identity of its owner, which is actually the headquarters of the family office Koop--, the center of the Page Kingdom.

The family offices of Page and Brin are somewhere between hedge funds and talent agencies, used by the super-rich to manage the details of their lives. They cover everything from charitable donations to investment, from property management to the legions of nannies, cooks and drivers needed to hire modern tycoons. Even before retiring from Google, Page and Brin relied heavily on their respective family offices to manage their empires.

Koop's low profile reflects Page's pursuit of absolute privacy. He wants to keep his post-Alphabet pursuits extremely secret and communicate directly with only a small number of people.

Page's gray, dishevelled hair is now almost shoulder-length. Since stepping down as Alphabet CEO, Google's parent company in 2019, Page has almost become a hermit. During the outbreak, he spent most of his time hiding on his private island of Tavarua in Fiji.

In the Mamanuka Islands of Fiji, a few miles west of the bustling Nadi Bay, lies a heart-shaped island called Tavarua. Tavarua is a paradise on the white beach, surrounded by amazing coral reefs. Tavarua is a surfing destination because of its proximity to Cloudbreak, a respected coral reef that can produce waves up to 20 feet (6 meters) high.

Page's private island in 2020, as COVID-19 began to spread around the world, Page returned to the island, where he was found playing surfing hydrofoil with his wife and two children and playing in the water. In the same year, Page became part-owner of the island of Tavarua and bought a majority stake in the island's leasing company, according to the documents. Page's right-hand man, family office CEO Wayne Osborne (Osbourne), is an official on the contract, according to the documents.

Tavarua is one of a growing number of islands owned by Page. His ownership of Eustatia in the British Virgin Islands is an open secret, as confirmed by legal documents. But west of Justa Island, there are two other Caribbean shrines better hidden by Page: Hans Lorek Island and the smaller Hans Lorick Island. Although locals privately say that Google owns the islands, legal documents show that the islands were bought by Mr. Page's family office for $23 million in 2014, and Mr. Osborne's name was mentioned in documents related to the purchase. Hans Lorek Island has emotional significance for Page: an unsealed testimony provided by Osborne in 2016 showed that Page proposed to his wife, Lucinda Lucinda Southworth, here.

Page proposed to his wife on Hans Lorek Island. These islands are a manifestation of Page's desire to escape peeping from the outside world. Page considered using the flying car of his flying car company, Kittyhawk, to transport passengers between Caribbean islands and sent a team of staff to Eusta Island to test the company's prototype in salt water, according to two people familiar with the matter. Kittyhawk employees joked: "Larry just wants a flying car to fly from his yacht to his private island."

But after nearly three years out of the public eye, he reappeared on Kittyhawk. Earlier this summer, he personally came to Kittyhawk to try to control his hundreds of millions of dollars of investment because it was getting out of control. Page originally wanted to build a spherical plane not much taller than a phone booth that could take off vertically and maneuver horizontally, but now there is a new adjustment: it will be fully electric and autopilot, and the chassis will be 3D printed. An employee nicknamed it "Larry Lozenge".

Kittyhawk's flying car, Heaviside, however, Page's rescue operation was too late. In September, Kittyhawk announced that it would "phase out" its business. Page's biggest investment in the post-Google era has failed.

By contrast, Brin has maintained a relatively public image, often appearing at tech parties and working on his ambitious projects, including an experimental airship startup and a new method of disaster relief.

While Page was trying to save his company, Brin was attending Fire Man Day. Unlike Page, Brin is rarely far from the spotlight. His divorce from lawyer and philanthropist Nicole Nicole Shanahan became tabloid fodder. There are also reports that Page's former close friend Elon Musk (Elon Musk) intervened in his marriage and had a secret rendezvous with Shanahan. In order to vent his feelings, Brin took a modified seaplane across the Pacific Ocean to attend the Fire Man Festival. In the Nevada desert, he reveled topless, surrounded by 80,000 holiday spectators and wearing a space-age bullet belt necklace.

Brin and his wife divorced this summer, just weeks after Brin's wife's affair with Musk was revealed, Brin was photographed having dinner with magician David Blaine and a mysterious blonde. He also performed with a rock band of a middle-aged math teacher in New York and attended a launch party in Topanga hills, north of Los Angeles, to celebrate the launch of mushroom startup Shroomboom. There, a DJ duo created experimental electronic music by connecting mushrooms to the sound system, and guests openly tasted psychedelic mushrooms.

Both Page and Brin enjoy yachting life, which has become one of the most obvious status symbols of the super-rich. But as Mr. Page's investment in private islands increases, he has been reducing his fleet. According to people familiar with Page's activities in the South Pacific, Page sold his superyacht, the Senses, and switched to a variety of smaller ships.

Brin's "dragonfly" yacht, by contrast, Brin has built a complete yacht "flying fleet". It is well known that he owns a 73-meter-long "dragonfly" yacht. But Brin also added a yacht called the Butterfly to his mini navy. This is a 40-meter-long stylish yacht with black windows, sailing under the flag of the Marshall Islands. He also has a smaller yacht, the Firefly, and a complete fleet of jet skis, rubber dinghies, surfing kites and other sports vessels.

Brin's maintenance and sailing fleet requires a global team of 50 people, led by navigator Mike Gregory. The crew of the Butterfly often use their afternoon breaks to play surfing kites in the bay near Redwood City, Calif., participate in scientific research in the local community and teach children swimming lessons.

Still in control of Google so far, Brin and Page are making good on the promises they made when they left office in 2019, largely regardless of Google's management. Prabhakar Raghavan, Google's head of search, has told the media that he occasionally receives emails from Mr Page and makes "sharp comments" on the features of the product. Brin made a rare appearance at the opening of Google's New York retail store last year and appeared as a special guest at Verily, Alphabet's life sciences division, at the end of 2020.

Page and Brin also continue to serve on the board of Google's parent company, Alphabet. With a special dual shareholding structure, they still effectively control the final control of the company, and even have a veto over CEO Sandal Sundar Pichai.

Brin and Page Alphabet spokesman Brittany Stagnaro (Brittany Stagnaro) said: "Larry and Sergei attended the board meeting and actively participated as board members."

However, the two partners, who worked side by side for many years, now have a very different way of life. They each have tens of billions of dollars in capital, companies and employees, and pursue their own unique passions, from Parkinson's research, yachts and Fire Day to tropical islands, flying cars and absolute privacy.

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