“Today brings news from the Googleplex of unfortunate domestic drama,” Brad Stone reports for Businessweek. “Google co-founder Sergey Brin and his wife of six years, 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki, are living separately. A person familiar with the situation calls the split difficult but ‘absolutely amicable.’ The couple has been married for six years and has two young children.”
“The news was first reported by the technology news site AllThingsD, which said Brin is now in a romantic relationship with another Google employee,” Stone reports. “The Bloomberg Billionaire Index pegs Brin’s net worth at $24.5 billion. The couple has a prenuptial agreement, so any potential divorce is unlikely to affect governance of the company.”
Stone reports, “Still, splits can be messy, especially in the small world of Silicon Valley’s elite… Wojcicki’s sister, Susan, is a senior vice president at Google and a member of Larry Page’s management team.”
Full article here.
“Brin and Wojcicki, both 40 years old, had been married for six years and have two children. They are not yet legally separated,” Liz Gannes reports for AllThingsD. “The possibility of a reconciliation of the pair is unclear, since Brin has become romantically involved with a Google employee, according to sources. This is further complicated by the fact that that employee had also at one point been involved with another Googler [see related article below].”
“While this is obviously sad and very personal news, it also has many business implications,” Gannes reports. “Brin and Wojcicki have many other well-known joint business efforts. They include Wojcicki’s personal-genomics startup 23andMe, which sells DNA test kits and helps users interpret their traits and health conditions. The company has raised more than $100 million from backers, including Google, Google Ventures and Brin himself.”
“According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Wojcicki and Brin gave away $223 million in 2012, the fifth-most for donors in the U.S., and they each contributed $190.1 million to their Brin Wojcicki Foundation. The foundation’s beneficiaries include the Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia), the Ashoka Foundation (social entrepreneurship), the Tipping Point Community (poverty in the Bay Area) and the Parkinson’s Institute,” Gannes reports. “A spokesman said Brin and Wojcicki would continue to work on all these endeavors together.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
I think judgment matters. If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. – Eric Schmidt
Related article:
Six months after Andy Rubin’s departure, Android VP Hugo Barra leaving Google for Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi – August 29, 2013
A perfect match between the level of integrity of the company and its founders and executives. The woman than Brin is fooling around with is a total bitch for stealing a man away from his wife who has his kids. She just ruined a family. One of the lowest acts you can do as a human being.
Pretty sure Sergey bears some responsibility there too.
twilightmoon has made a number of these types of postings showing his level of morality. In his mind, it is always the woman’s fault and men bear no responsibility at all. In fact, it seems that he is right on par with the Taliban.
and the Indians and people in general from that part of the world 😀
Ha you got 28 votes for trolling me and grossly misstating my views on woman. Well played sir.
I find you a tiresome and irritating nag but I will grant you are consistent and you t least eat your own dog food in that I never see you curse which you scold others for.
I absolutely do blame the other woman for her despicable act but in no way does that mean I let him off the hook at all. They are both vile human beings selfish and rotten to the core. Perfect for Google.
He’s following in Schmitty’s footsteps.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2371719/Googles-Eric-Schmidts-open-marriage-string-exotic-lovers.html
You’re correct it takes two to tango.
But is she hot?
@ Dumbo
Judge for yourself …
http://valleywag.gawker.com/meet-the-google-founders-mistress-1219044247
I haven’t been able to find any pictures of her sitting on a giant red ball.
Sergey has a case of Yellow Fever?
I see. 40 vs 26… Not fair. Women’s body ages differently from Men. A man can stay relatively fit and actually improve at that age. A women has to fight forces beyond their control. Even if they go fit like crazy, the results is just a muscular look vs a 20’s young naturally firm body.
Oh my god, it’s his Yoko Ono! Break up the Googles!
NO, Not even close….
Isn’t Brin a “total bitch” for messing around with the gaggle employee?
Why is Sergey Brin’s personal life any of our freakin’ business?
You would have a good point if this want Google who makes your personal business their corporate profit.
Which Google employee said if you don’t want someone to find out about something in your life then you shouldn’t be doing it?
Sorry but no Google executive is entitled to any privacy whatsoever.
“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” –Google CEO Eric Schmidt
It’s the public’s business because it could potentially affect the management and governance a public company, in spite of pre-nuptial assertions to the contrary.
NTM the plot turns out to have thickened in a way that will effect “the fate of companies.”
His new sweetie’s not only the coiner of “OK, Glass,” but also the ex-girlfriend of another key Google employee – the VP for Android Product Development, Hugo Barra (see Alanaudio’s link above in the thread) – who “coincidentally” announced he’s leaving just about (or on) the same day this story’s breaking…
http://www.techhive.com/article/2047691/report-android-product-head-hugo-barra-to-leave-google.html
So, yeah, this is laundry with enough clinging dirt to be laundered in the light of day…..
That is hilarious that you think Brin’s personal life is sacrosanct when he runs a business whose goal is to filch as much of your personal data as possible and sell it to advertisers or turn it over to the NSA. How myopic can you be.
Hey Darwin,
I don’t use Google search or Google Mail or Google Maps or anything else Google, at least knowingly, because I don’t want Google (and NSA) to know too much about me. And as I stated, I don’t give a flying rat’s ass about Brin’s love life.
In fact, all this interest in Brin’s love life is as bad as people prying to Steve Job’s personal life when he was so ill.
Rather than be productive, this country has become a bunch of ambulance chasers who cannot wait for the next reality show episode. We are truly doomed!
That’s it, Sergey… Keep doing what you’re doing… You’re doing great…
Ballmer style.
Total non-class act. Brin completely matches the totally immoral & soulless nature of the company he works for. When a guy has too much money, the eye can wander all too easily. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
He forgot to take off his Google Glasses!
But he left on his beer goggles.
Rose tinted Google Glass that is.
Suppose he forgot to take off his Google Glasses before messing around!
Hardly surprising, given that Brin – and by extension the company he runs – has the self-awareness of an Aspergers case study. Marry and separate from someone who is a direct beneficiary of your Venture funding – then go on to date someone who reports to you. Priceless.
Brin, much like Schmidt, is in desperate need of a handler. There are things you just don’t do and things you just don’t say when you’re responsible for one of the most recognizable brands on the planet.
No conscience iPad te top end equals no conscience in the company.
“at the top”. I have no idea why autocorrect would write iPad.
Ad placement.
😆
You really have a problem guys
How many of you have divorced once or more?
How many of you don’t speak anymore with parts of your family?
If not you… How many of your friends for who you have respect are in the exact same situation?
This is his private life. It has really nothing to do with his job and certainly isn’t your business.
You don’t get the as acerbic irony cast her. Google executives can expect the same respect for their privacy as they give their users, that is, NONE. Your questions too bear little relevance.
Come on… This has nothing to do with irony and you know it…
It’s just bashing someone from a company you hate.
Like bashing the little fat kid at school to prove how strong you are.
It’s pathetic… And not because it’s an important guy at Google.
It’s pathetic because a lot of people on MDN have absolutely no decency. Just go back and look about Android adoption in Spain and the comments about the train crash there if you need a proof.
It involves SEVERAL employees (and one now suddenly ex) at a public corporation with key operating roles at a major world corporation – the founder and the VP for Android Product Development (who might have left anyway, but not with this pall over the whole thing).. See my link in above comment.
Nothing “not to see” here folks. Don’t move on.
The story line’s basically the same as David and Bathsheeba. And people are still all over that one a few thousand years later…
Workplace is where most of love/sex/hate or whatever affairs happen. It’s no surprise that it happens also at Google (or any other company)
I can only hardly believe That X leaves a job with a tremendous pay because Y is now with Z who is X’s ex GF. These people live in a different world and would be the best friend of the guy who killed their mother if it would be of any advantage to them.
In my opinion it’s really just a coincidence… And once again… Not my business… I really don’t give a s… of what they do in their private life.
This is NOT his “private life” he stunk up all over his company and top managers are leaving because if it. Stop blathering on like a thick skilled idiot and pull your head out of your ass.
The fact that we are trashing him and his company is not because we are classless chimps but because Goggle has consistently and repeatedly shown no respect for people’s privacy, IP, copyrights, or any level of decency.
“Stop blathering on like a thick skilled idiot and pull your head out of your ass.” “…is not because we are classless chimps”
Yeah right… I think you perfectly made my point.
When Google stops selling people’s data they will deserve an “expectation of privacy”. Until that time, I hope video of the hook up from Google Glass ends up on TMZ, Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood and all the other dealers in electrify stalking.
Schadenfreude, Schatzi.
Celebrity Stalking
Damned iOS spell correct.
So much about the decency…
BTW… Google doesn’t SELL people’s data… It USES it in its algorithmes to target the ADVERTISMENT PLACE it SELLLS to its customers.
In no way does Google provide this data to a third party (Except US administration (as does Apple or Facebook or any major company in the US))
I know that everyone here likes to forget about this difference but it is a difference… And a big one
If I use data about you to sell advertising I am selling your data. Maybe the third party does not possess it, but it was sold in order to target ads.
Google is also actively lobbying on the Hill to undermine every thread of privacy protection citizens have under law.
“If I use data about you to sell advertising I am selling your data.”
Sorry no. I can’t agree with that.
Company X pays Google to publish adds for its product. Google uses the data it has about its users to target those who could potentially be interested… That’s it.
At no point does Company X see any data about Google’s users nor did Google sell this data to anyone. This is just plain fact.
Selling access+ selling data.
If it makes you feel better then yes… Happy now?
It’ll be interesting to see if 23andme drops in the search ranking from its current preeminent position.
MDN, where is this story about the OS X security flaw? Isn’t that a more important story? Everyone else has covered it. Who cares about Google and romantic relationships?
Do know evil !
Is this what “Google Play” is?
Looks like Google’s got some great HR practices in place.
Once a Glasshole, always a Glasshole.
Anne is very manly looking…
We may not ever know the full story, but this just reinforces my suspicions of the leaders at Google. Namely, that they don’t have self-control and are hypocrites. These guys are more like Ellison than Steve Jobs.