Sergey Brin

Brin was born into a Russian-Jewish family on August 21, 1973, in Moscow, then the capital of the Soviet Union. Both of Brin's parents, Mikhail and Eugenia Brin (1948–2024), graduated from Moscow State University (MSU). His father is a retired mathematics professor at the University of Maryland, and his mother was a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

The Brin family lived in a three-room apartment in central Moscow, which they also shared with Sergey's paternal grandmother. In 1977, after returning from a mathematics conference in Warsaw, Poland, Mikhail announced that, because of antisemitism in the Soviet Union, it was time for the family to emigrate. They formally applied for their exit visa in September 1978, and as a result, his father was "promptly fired". For related reasons, his mother had to leave her job. For the next eight months, without any steady income, they were forced to take on temporary jobs as they waited, afraid their request would be denied as it was for many refuseniks. In May 1979, they were granted their official exit visas and were allowed to leave the country.

The Brin family lived in Vienna and Paris while Mikhail Brin secured a teaching position at the University of Maryland with help from Anatole Katok. During this time, the Brin family received support and assistance from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. They arrived in the United States on October 25, 1979.

He attended Eleanor Roosevelt High School. In September 1990, Brin enrolled in the University of Maryland, where he received his Bachelor of Science from the Department of Computer Science in 1993 with honors in computer science and high honors in mathematics at the age of 19. In 1993, he interned at Wolfram Research, the developers of Mathematica.

Brin began his graduate study in computer science at Stanford University on a graduate fellowship from the National Science Foundation, receiving a Master of Science degree in computer science in 1995. As of 2008, he was on leave from his Doctor of Philosophy studies at Stanford.

Brin was raised Jewish, but is not religious.

In May 2007, Brin married biotech analyst and entrepreneur Anne Wojcicki in the Bahamas. They had a son in late 2008 and a daughter in late 2011. In August 2013, it was announced that Brin and his wife were living separately after Brin had an extramarital affair with a Google Glass colleague. In June 2015, Brin and Wojcicki finalized their divorce.

On November 7, 2018, he married Nicole Shanahan, a legal tech founder. They have a daughter, born in late 2018. Brin and Shanahan separated on December 15, 2021, and Brin filed for divorce on January 4, 2022. In summer 2023, the divorce was finalized. The Wall Street Journal reported that a reason for the breakup was a "brief affair" in 2021 between Shanahan and Elon Musk.

Brin's mother, Eugenia, has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. In 2008, he decided to make a donation to the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where his mother has received treatment. According to Forbes, Brin has donated over $1 billion to fund research on the disease.

Brin and Wojcicki, although separated, jointly ran The Brin Wojcicki Foundation until 2014. Since then, Brin has used the Sergey Brin Family Foundation and a donor-advised fund for his philanthropic giving. They donated extensively to The Michael J. Fox Foundation and in 2009 gave $1 million to support the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

Brin was a donor to Democratic Party candidates and organizations, having donated $5,000 to Barack Obama's 2012 reelection campaign and $30,800 to the DNC. Brin attended the second inauguration of Donald Trump, sitting alongside Donald Trump supporters and other tech moguls. In December 2025, as a result of the 2026 California billionaire tax initiative, Brin and Page, worth a combined $520 billion, terminated or moved 60 limited liability companies that hold their assets out of California.

Brin is the owner of the superyacht Dragonfly.

Brin has described his use of and experiences with psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin. He has also invested in psychedelic pharmaceutical companies like Soneira Bio, which is developing ibogaine (SON-001) for potential medical use.