A resurfaced interview of Google co-founder Sergey Brin detailed his dramatic journey from the Soviet Union to Silicon Valley — a background that has led him to oppose California’s proposed billionaire tax.
Brinbroke his silencein a New York Times report Monday on why he’s pouring money into campaigns tostop the tax proposal, which will be up in front of voters this November.
“I fled socialism with my family in 1979 and know the devastating, oppressive society it created in the Soviet Union,” the tech figure worth $260 billion said. “I don’t want California to end up in the same place.”
During aDecember eventfor Stanford University’s School of Engineering, Brin discussed his upbringing when asked about what deeply held beliefs he had to change when building Google.
He was born in Moscow, he recounted, where “everybody was poor.” He lived in a 400-foot-square apartment with parents and grandparents and five flights of stairs.
“I didn’t really think about the world outside,” he said.
But his father got a “taste,” Brin recalled, when he travelled to Poland for a conference and was told what the Western world was like. The father decided to move the family in 1979, which was controversial, Brin said. Brin was just six.
They arrived at America still poor. Brin said he had to learn a new language and make new friends, a challenging transition but also “awakening.”
Brin earned a bachelor’s degree in Maryland but got accepted into graduate school at Stanford. He said he felt a similar “awakening” when he arrived in California.
“Just something about California that was very freeing and liberating given the tradition of the state,” he said — but he added it’s a tradition “that we’re getting a little bit away from in California, if I’m being honest.”
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
