Sergey Brin was born into a Jewish family in Moscow and moved to the United States as a child. Although his heritage is clearly Jewish, Brin has described his upbringing as secular and not strictly religious. He did attend Hebrew school for a time but ultimately did not follow through with a bar mitzvah and has said he is “not religious.”
Quick Profile: Sergey Brin
| Full Name | Sergey Mikhailovich Brin |
| Date of Birth | August 21, 1973 (Moscow, USSR) |
| Nationality | Russian-American (emigrated to USA in 1979) |
| Education | B.Sc. University of Maryland (1993); M.S. Stanford University (1995) |
| Profession | Computer scientist, entrepreneur (cofounder of Google) |
| Religion | Jewish by heritage (culturally Jewish; not a practicing believer) |
What religion is Sergey Brin?
Sergey Brin’s parents are Russian Jewish, and he was born into a Jewish family. However, Brin has clarified that he himself does not follow Judaism as a faith. According to reliable sources, “Brin was raised Jewish, but is not religious”. He has not publicly declared any other religious faith, effectively making him culturally Jewish but personally secular. His family background is Jewish (his parents fled Soviet anti-Semitism), yet his household did not strictly practice religious rituals. In interviews, his parents explained that they observed some Jewish customs (for example, they always hold a Passover seder) but did not keep kosher or regularly attend synagogue.
Brin’s upbringing in the United States was spent largely outside of formal religious life. He did spend a few years in Hebrew school early on, but it was difficult for him and he eventually stopped attending. After visiting Israel at age 11, the family tried restarting his bar mitzvah studies, but Brin lost interest and chose not to complete it. In short, Sergey Brin’s religion is Judaism by ethnicity, but he himself is non-practicing and does not observe Jewish law or rituals in his daily life.
Early Life
Sergey Brin was born on August 21, 1973, in Moscow, in the former Soviet Union. His parents, Mikhail and Eugenia Brin, were both Russian scientists of Jewish background. The family experienced discrimination in the USSR (Brin’s father noted that official anti-Semitism made life difficult for Jews) and decided to emigrate. In 1979, the Brins won permission to leave and moved to the United States. On October 25, 1979, Brin’s family arrived in Maryland, helped by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the same Jewish aid group Sergey would later donate to. He grew up in Maryland, speaking Russian at home but adapting quickly to American life.
Brin showed early academic talent. He attended Eleanor Roosevelt High School (Maryland) and entered the University of Maryland at College Park at age 17. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in computer science (1993) and a dual mathematics degree. He then won a prestigious National Science Foundation fellowship to pursue a Ph.D. in computer science at Stanford University. At Stanford (beginning fall 1993) Brin met Larry Page, another graduate student, and the two became friends. Together they worked on a research project on web searching, developing the PageRank algorithm. In 1996–98 they refined their search engine ideas, eventually abandoning Brin’s Ph.D. to start Google as a company. (They incorporated Google in 1998, naming it after the mathematical term “googol.”) All these details are well documented.
Career and Achievements
Sergey Brin is best known as a cofounder of Google. He and Larry Page launched Google from a garage in Menlo Park, California in 1998. The Google search engine quickly became hugely successful, revolutionizing how people find information online. Brin served as the company’s President of Technology. Google grew rapidly, went public in 2004, and expanded into many products (AdWords, Android, etc.). In 2015 Google reorganized under a new parent company called Alphabet; Brin served as President of Alphabet until December 2019.
Under Brin’s leadership, Google became one of the world’s most valuable companies. As of 2024, Sergey Brin is ranked among the richest people on earth. Bloomberg and Forbes report his net worth around US$ 217 billion (he is often called a “centibillionaire”). In late 2023 Brin briefly came out of a semi-retirement to work on new projects in artificial intelligence at Alphabet. Overall, Brin’s career earned him numerous honors (such as the Marconi Prize) and a prominent place in technology history, though these details go beyond the scope of his religious profile.
Personal Life
Outside of work, Sergey Brin has had a high-profile personal life. In May 2007 he married biotech entrepreneur Anne Wojcicki (sister of YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki) in the Bahamas. The couple had two children (a son in 2008 and a daughter in 2011). Brin and Wojcicki separated in 2013 after reports of Brin’s affair, and their divorce was finalized in 2015.
In November 2018, Brin married lawyer Nicole Shanahan, and they have one daughter born in late 2018. This marriage also ended; Brin and Shanahan separated in late 2021 and divorced in 2023. Brin tends to keep a low personal profile apart from these events. He is known to have interests in fitness (he practices yoga for relaxation) and exploration (he invested in space tourism).
Philanthropy
Sergey Brin is a noted philanthropist. Motivated in part by his family’s history and health experiences, he and his ex-wife have donated to various causes. For example, Brin’s mother suffers from Parkinson’s disease, and Brin has given over US$1 billion to fund research on Parkinson’s and related illnesses. He and Anne Wojcicki also ran the Brin Wojcicki Foundation (a family philanthropy) until 2014. Notably, in 2009 they donated $1 million to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS). This is the same Jewish relief organization that helped Brin’s own family when they emigrated in 1979. Brin’s giving reflects his interest in science and his immigrant roots. He also supports other causes (education, renewable energy, etc.) through his Sergey Brin Family Foundation.
Trivia
- Sergey Brin made a cameo as himself in the 2013 comedy film “The Internship”
- He is often cited as a Google billionaire, Bloomberg listed him as the 6th-richest person in the world (about $217 billion in 2025)
- Brin is known to practice yoga; in 2006 his father humorously noted that Sergey was on his way home from a yoga session when news broke of a Google deal
- When Google was founded, early investor Andy Bechtolsheim wrote the first check for $100,000 to “Google, Inc.”, even before the company officially existed. This quirky fact is part of Brin’s startup lore.
