Ex-hippy to spend Google’s millions
Published: February 23, 2006
LARRY BRILLIANT would never have been appointed head of Google’s charity unit had a mischievous guru not thrown apples at the American as he was meditating at an Indian ashram in the 1970s.
Dr Brilliant was picked yesterday to run Google.org, the internet company’s charitable foundation. The 61-year-old former hippy was drawn to Google after he read the company’s “Don’t be evil” motto in its float prospectus last year and has spent the past six months in talks with the founders about how best to use the foundation’s cash for charitable causes.
Sergei Brin and Larry Page, Google’s founders, chose the unconventional doctor, who was once a personal physician to members of the Grateful Dead, the psychedelic rock band, because they seek to do “good not evil” with their new-found billions.
On paper, the trained physician and former leading light in the World Health Organisation (WHO) is the perfect candidate. He is a child of the Sixties who travelled from Woodstock to India and back in search of enlightenment and who ended up leading the campaign to eradicate smallpox in the sub-continent. At the same time he is a pioneer in California’s Silicon Valley, where he has used the money he made to build a big, successful Third World health charity.
Google.org is a jumble of well-meaning charitable funds and foundations started almost on an ad hoc basis by the Google founders. Dr Brilliant’s mission is to bring them together and to define their “mission and strategic goals”.
Dr Brilliant said: “I have great admiration for Google’s technical contributions to society and believe that it can make an equally great impression through philanthropy.”
The doctor lived a fairly conventional existence as a philosophy student, but turned to medicine after he found out his father was dying of cancer. In 1970, aged 26, he also had cancer diagnosed. He took time off and became involved with the psychedelic movement. After starring in the film sequel to Woodstock, he was paid by Warner Brothers in Indian Airline tickets and left America to seek enlightenment at an ashram.
However, his guru would not let him meditate in peace, throwing apples at him every time he was spotted in the lotus position. The guru, Neem Karoli Baba, told him that instead he should help to save India from a smallpox epidemic. After years of persistence, he led a 100,000-strong team of WHO doctors that vaccinated the entire country.
More recently, Dr Brilliant founded The Well, a pioneering internet community that helped to start the revolution that created companies such as Yahoo!, Google and eBay.
AMERICA’S MOST GENEROUS
(estimated lifetime giving)
• Bill and Melinda Gates, Microsoft co-founders: $27.9 bn
• Gordon and Betty Moore, Intel co-founders: $7.3 bn
• George Soros, investor: $5.4 bn
• Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway CEO: $2.7 bn
• Eli and Edythe Broad, SunAmerica, KB Home founders: $1.8 bn
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