Legendary Investor Ron Conway Explains the Early Days of Google

The Genesis of Google

• 💡 Larry Page and Sergey Brin met as PhD students at Stanford in 1999, both in their early twenties.
• 🎯 At the time, the need for a better search engine was a widely discussed topic, akin to a "gold rush" in Silicon Valley.
• 🧠 Their initial project, nicknamed "BackRub," aimed to solve this problem with a scientific approach.

PageRank Innovation

• 🔬 Larry and Sergey's solution focused on analyzing web's forward and back links to determine "PageRank."
• ✅ The core idea was to make search results relevant by prioritizing pages linked to by many other sites, a revolutionary concept then.
• 📈 Google's sustained market leadership is attributed to its continuous heavy investment in R&D to advance search technology.

Stanford's Role in Discovery

• 🤝 Larry and Sergey developed a close working relationship with Professor Rajeev Motwani, who possessed expertise in their specific area of research.
• 🔑 SV Angel, Ron Conway's firm, strategically engaged with Stanford PhD professors, including David Cheriton and Rajeev Motwani, to identify promising startups.

Discovering BackRub

• 🗣️ Ron Conway first learned about "BackRub" from David Cheriton, a Stanford professor and SV Angel investor, at a holiday party in December 1998.
• 💬 Cheriton described "BackRub" as a search algorithm developed by two Stanford students that used "PageRank" and "relevance."

Recognizing the Opportunity

• 🔥 Upon hearing about PageRank and relevance, Ron Conway immediately understood the immense potential of the technology.
• 🚀 He recognized that a scientific algorithm focused on page rank and relevance would significantly outperform existing search engines.
• ⏳ Conway persistently followed up with David Cheriton for months until the timing was right for an introduction to Larry and Sergey.