Just as Google is celebrating its 10th anniversary, a man claiming to be the “third” founder of Google has come out to stake his claim to history. In the video above, a man calling himself Hubert Chang claims that as an NYU Ph.D student in 1997 he was introduced to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin by Stanford professor Rajeev Motwani. He then helped the two come up with PageRank (the underlying algorithm that powers Google’s search engine), the name Google, and even the business plan.
So why wasn’t his name on the original PageRank paper? Because, he says, he decided to pursue his Ph.D instead. Then when he did finish his Ph.D n 2002 and contacted Google, he got the big brush off from Larry and Sergey’s handlers. (Surprise, surprise). Remember, boys and girls, always ask for a byline.
Is any of this true? I have no idea. It could be a hoax. But I have emails into professor Motwani, Google, and Hubert Chang asking for more details. By his own account, though, it sounds like Chang walked away from Google because he thought it wouldn’t amount to much. His mistake.
(Hat tip to Webrence).
Update: A Google spokesperson got back to me with the following (non) response:
Though many people were involved with Google in its early days, it has been well-documented over the past decade that Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded the company in September 1998.
So Google is not denying Chang’s account or calling him a fake.
Update 2: Stanford prof. Rajeev Motwani does a better job distancing Chang from the early days of Google. He came back to me with the following response:
To the best of my knowledge, his claims about being a founder of Google, coming up with the name and/or the business plan etc, are completely unfounded in reality. I am sure I would have noticed a third founder, if one existed, since I was working closely with Larry and Sergey at Stanford the time.
I do recall receiving a couple of emails from Hubert Chang in 1997 or 1998. Its been such a long time that I don’t have any recollection of their contents but it’s probable I shared those emails with Larry and Sergey. In any case, by that time the basic idea of PageRank was already in place and there was a clear intent of building a company around this. I am pretty certain that none of the three of us actually met with Hubert Chang during that time period.
Update 3: A Google spokesperson has given us the following revised statement:
There is no substance to Hubert Chang’s claims - he had no involvement in the creation of Google. Neither Larry or Sergey have any recollection of meeting him - however, given the number of people they’ve met in the last decade it’s impossible to say categorically that they never have. Rajeev Motwani, the Professor and Director of Graduate Studies at Stanford, believes he may have shared some emails from Mr. Chang with Larry and Sergey in 1997 or 1998. But in any case PageRank had already been developed by that time, and Larry and Sergey had already decided to start Google
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What a dork.
user generated reviews blow pagerank out of the water. pagerank cannot survive final destination premium user generated niche location engines.
pagerank was not genius, more of what i call “inevetiable evolution. ”
what made G profitable was syndicating ads on a embed widget with yahopes patent 360. 60% of G’s income. Pat360 license to G was the “Greatest Steal of a Deal ever made on the internet.” imagine now yahope is about to get pimped by its own product. only on the net.
LocatorEngine.com
I’ve seen you post here a couple times so I checked out your site and also saw your video on vator.tv. You have an interesting idea, but having people curate the web doesn’t sound like something that would scale. It reminds me much of Yahoo!’s directory from back in the day.
Say I want to ask:
“On what computing setup does a bubble sort work fastest”
Do I check the “programming” group? The “hardware” group? I don’t know where to start.
I can just google that question though and it gives me some answers which pertain to what I need. That’s difficult to compete with if you’re pushing a “human” solution. There are just too many questions and not enough humans to point you in the right direction but there will always be more compute cycles.
Anyways. Good luck!
Many times the greatest inventions are right in front of our face but we never take the time to look into the opportunity. “I know” i am one those once in a lifetime opportunities. work harder, work smarter and you create things on the internet no one can fathom in 1 minute. your all alone and in your own league. the greatest regret i find of business people is not taking on more risk. If had they there fortunes would have been much more rewarding.
answer to your? google is good for people going to school or learning, research no doubt. but form “common sense” day to day small BUSINESS and CONSUMER related searches it comes up short. plumber,dentist, painter, mechanic, contractors, hardware stores every thing has a fixed postion that does not change that much. once you have a “strategic natural language location”for all of these bread and butter consumption related searches you’ve created a master natural language location network.Many times the greatest inventions are right in front of our face but we never take the time to look into the opportunity.
EXCLUSIVE TC FOOTAGE:
MyLocator shares his 1200+ Location Scroll for the first time on video for TC and Seesmic users.
http://seesmic.com/video/wKVzRNKwAc
dont judge the website. its my toy. judge my unlimited internet and mobile growth potential. Judge my common sense “natural language location channels.”
I pioneered and created the “Greatest Strategic Multichannel Natural Language Domain Name Portfolio ever. No one will be able to compete with my custom 1200+ location based niche social offerings.”
custom vertical email and subsites for users on over 1200 vertical locator channels. users will pick the locator channel and email that is right for them.
TruthLocator.com- some can see it and some cannot. some need to stay in schoool more and study harder.
http://www.vator.tv/pitch/show/MyLocatorcom
I’ve seen your spam all around TC channels.
I couldn’t help but watch one or two of your videos.
Stop dreaming buddy, build something instead of promoting like an idiot on Seemic and Vator.
Go get a clue about how to build a real business, find a real need and solution, build a team, and build something real.
And stop being an spammy assclown on TC.
LOL. this guy was in my dramatic lit class at nyu. i guess he switched majors. and in real life he is MUCH more FLAMING
Brilliant HR work by Sergei & Larry. This is exactly the kind of guy you’d want to hire if you were an entrepreneur. Contributes valuable Intellectual Property and then leaves quietly without taking any equity!
From what I hear, Google has always been good at this sort of coaxing extra work out of employees. 20% time, for instance — You put in 40 or 50 hours of regular work and then you put in another 20% on top of that, wherein you contribute your entrepreneurial idea to Google for free. Everyone at Google seems quite happy and well paid, so no harm done. But very, very few other companies command the management respect to pull that sort of thing off! Imagine the outcry if Microsoft suggested that their employees should develop startups and then contribute them to the mother company gratis…
Yep - your loss buddy. Live with no regrets.
Boohoo. You CHOSE not to put your name on the paper. Mr Arrington is the Lawyer - where does he stand Mike? Does he have a leg …. ?
So what. I was the first janitor at Microsoft. Give me a fucking prize.
Oh man, that’s hilarious. I know he’s trying to get something but dude, I wouldn’t be going online and implying that I walked away from Google because they wouldn’t be anything. That’s just stupid.
How do you know that he’s actually trying to get something other than clarify a historical fact?
In god we google!
In parts of the interview he appears to be speaking in the present. If this guy is not a fake, why wait 10 years to come out and say this? It is not like Google has not have tons of super good press over the past 5 years. So why wait?
So I am listening to him about his Phd. I guess never heard of Bill Gates. He should be happy with his Phd., maybe he can get a job with Google
He was so wrapped up in his Phd that he did not hear about developments on the net, this thing called AltaVista, this thing called Yahoo!, this thing called Google - GEEK. I wander who can afford the better lawyers. Condolences, if it’s true - you got screwed, oh no - u screwed yourself. Imagine how proud Daddy would have been if you launched Google. Live with no regrets, or be stuck in the past forever.
a formal agreement wouldn’t have been a bad idea
first bill gates then Mark Zuckerberg
now larry and sergey?????????
interesting point! the biggest successes were the biggest rip off artists (sort of)…
Bill Gates managed to capitalize on building software for the masses, while Apple wanted to control the quality, so curbed their scalability… but he is now giving away his wealth and proving his worth… and Steve Jobs will rule again as the world begins to appreciate value for their money.
I feel bad for the guy. I’m contemplating whether I should go through with my Ph.D.
You want to contemplate just cos of this video? Then perhaps a PhD journey isn’t for you.
Yeah, and I walked away from PayPerPost.
Importantly this could invalidate any patents that Google have for PageRank. When you write a Patent it’s super important to include as ‘inventors’ anyone who was in the room when you were knocking ideas about.
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.
-Andrew
http://www.trackmyshipments.com
Wrong… at best, he could sue to be added as an inventor. But it wouldn’t invalidate the patent.
This dude says his e-mails were not saved. Would the e-mail company still have such data hidden somewhere?
OK, give him a fat check so lets say hmmmmm $100 for effort. With a Phd., he should have no problem doing (a) Getting a good teaching job (b) working with Microsoft (3) Building his own Search Engine.
Maybe TechCrunch can hire him to build TechCrunch Search
exactly .. why now? why not 2002?! 2003?!!
i am the fourth founder of google
Why now?
He couldn’t put his name on the paper because it would be a commitment to the “google project”? That makes no sense whatsoever
Its exactly why he cannot make such claims to be the 3rd founder. I am no PhD, but isn’t it a good idea to be associated with academic research? So even if Google had not become a big success, it seems silly to decline such an opportunity.
What’s the point of this anyways??
back in 60’s I was the one who helped Bill Gates establish the PC-DOS, I was the one who got the code from IBM, modified and rewrote to MS-DOS. Microsoft please give me my share…please please
So do you have any pictures with the google guys because you know the guys that said that facebook got stolen from them got Paaaaaaaaaaaaaid .
Ok guys, if everyones going at it.. I might as well too..
Larry, Sergey and me were all IRC Junkies at the time. we were all hanging out in #fed on the dalnet network. Larry’s nickname at the time was ntwak0 and Sergey’s was NetSpyder (mine was ilan` (as in “Integrated Local Area Network, yeah I know it’s dumb..) anyway.. the original google PR algorithm was planned out in our channel.. I do remember this chinese guy and a guy named MonoXyde and Cripexi.. there were about 7 more visitors just idle’ing.. let’s see now.. I remember BioWin, Kaflik, and some more.. they all have their own network security companies now.. but I WAS THE SOURCE for the PR Plan! I invented it!
That’s some impressive memory right there..
I am actually Larry Page. That man is a hoax, I want my company back!
The internet now has it’s Pete Best.
Youtube says this movie was uploaded in Dec of 07. Why didn’t we hear more about this before ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1Yx8eo0fzY
If its true , i feel bad for the guy.
In all seriousness could the guy claim any money from Google ?
No.
OK, lets assume he was indeed part of the project, right? But he said that he voluntarily decided to walk away; so, what does he what now? That means this is a man without a vision who passed on the best opportunity of his life. He should be embarrassed.
And, if this is a hoax, at least hoax it up in a smart way, say it that you were FORCED to walk away.
If this is true.. BIG miss!
My father also wished that I do my phd.. may be i will do that later!
You screwed up and nothing and I mean nothing is going to come of it now. You will not make any money or any recognition.
You should have had contracts ad agreements, but you chose to walk away from the opportunity, so stop your little girl bitching. You made a choice and now you get to live with it.
Reminds me of Jawed Karim (sp?), the 3rd YouTube founder. However, he got paid.
Fox:
Pete Best was kicked out of the Beatles, well after they’d started getting famous. Not Beatlemania famous, of course, but rather popular around the north of England.
This guy apparently didn’t want to risk putting all his eggs (or really any eggs) in the Google basket. It would be more akin to compare him to Alan Williams (wouldn’t manage the Beatles) or one of the early Quarrymen who quit playing after a few gigs.
Yeah, I think about this stuff too much.
It might be some smart viral video ad campaign trick
Sort of like LonelyGirl15
alex
Someone please clarify for me: why would having his name on the pagerank paper and pursuing his PHD be mutually exclusive? He couldn’t have shared authorship of the paper and still gotten his PHD?
I don’t get it
Me neither. That’s where the story gets doubtful.
Also, he saved none of the emails?! How convenient!
it makes no sense whatsoever. having a name on a paper is no commitment to participating in future papers whatsoever.
Is he real: probably
Should he get anything: no, except maybe lunch from Larry and Sergey
When a new project is starting out there’s a core group of people (Larry and Sergey) and then others come and go onto other things (like Hubert). You don’t sit in a closet, build something and then show up some day out of no where, you talk to people you bounce ideas around, academia is like this. Maybe Hubert did look at the idea made some suggestions on a personal, one on one level, and then didn’t feel like going forward and taking the risk. No risk, no reward.
If it is true, I’m curious to know why he’s finally speaking up? It could very well be a hoax or he’s finally realized he made a giant mistake.
People perceive good investments based on real worth, involvement and the perceived value whether monetary or personal enrichment. This person chose his PHD since it was a logical choice at the time. We may for instantance say that he should have acted as soon a possible but put yourself in his position and say that you would automatically act. Maybe he didnt think much of it but over the course of 10 years it probably ate him enough to lash out. If he did make an attempt to get into contact but was brushed off, it is still considered an attempt. For the patent information a previous commentor is correct, you MUST include all person(s) who collaborated on the project whether small or big as you could create potential problems later on. which could cause the patents to be null in voide or face stiff penalty and potential to award damages. If this is true than it should be brought into public light and the poeple at large to be informed of this development. If compensation is not on the table for this man he should then go to Googles competitors for improperly excluding him from due credit and or create a competitor.
LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
…all you making fun of this guy are complete morons. nothing about his verbal style nor body language indicates deception. the ony question remains is what does he hope to gain from this…recognition, compensation, positon at Google?
he says, “Righteousness” on youtube comment
it’s obviously a joke you moron.
This is a statement of fact. How is that stupid? You would prefer an assumption about someone’s level of seriousness?
I think you are him, and you are a sad third-world cesspool excuse for an engineer.
Actually, this video appears to have been posted to Youtube back in december 07: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1Yx8eo0fzY
Ok here is the clincher. Somewhere in his speech he said world changing, and something about page rankings, graph. Then Mr. Phd student, if you were so FIRED up about asking your professor for help, and then linking up with Google, at no time you thought what you were working on or contributing to would some day become of value?
I mean you are the genius, so you must have confidence in your own abilities. So it shows that you were not so smart of a Phd student after all. As I am sure you protected your thesis for your Phd, so why not your contribution to google if what you say is true.
If it is real he is a joke. If it is not real, he is still a joke.
The guy cant create a google competitor because googles algo has changed since 98. Googles results arent any better than gigablasts. Only difference is Google has been able to use media to stand out.
Its like obama/clinton ( these two politicians werent the best , they had something the media could sell to joe public hence obama and clinton had 99% of the coverage).
I think some guys at Stanford can surely verified this. If he was actually working over there. If he had worked with Sergate & Larry, I’m very sure the professor over there will know. The best way is to talk to professor Motwani and the school.
If he was actually help to created PageRank & Google name, he is definitely deserve something or at least Google’s cool enough to honor his work.
I co-founded the Internet with Al Gore.
Nice job on that. I love the Internet!
I hope Al gives you a share. Obama wants to get him back in government as high commissioner of the environment or something. Maybe then he can route some pork barrel projects to you! I bet you could get $1M to study what color screen background is best for the environment…
I co-founded the Internet with Dave Zatz and Al-Gore
He should send his resume to Yahoo.
Man, this guy needs to get a life and for sure he is trying to get on the hype.
Diesel
Car Wallpapers
You are the one who is trying to get on the hype
http://link-to-my-website.com
I think what he says is true. It is incredibly daring to go online. It is just that larry and sergei are going by the book. No agreement? no food. But perhaps, small crumb would make a nice gesture
Well, I want my small crumb too then.
Bullshit: no PhD student will refuse having his name on a paper, even unrelated to his main research. When academic careers are “publish or perish”, people fight for the right to be included in academic papers’ bylines. I don’t for a moment believe he took part of the design and did not ask for academic credit; that would be sheer unthinkable idiotism.
A rather general statement. Not every paper is worth associating your name to. If it’s garbage, your name goes down with it.
Yes, and if he thought the PageRank paper was garbage, then tough titties, no?
How many papers do you know that are not worth bearing your name? I can only think of a handful (published in papers with an impact factor of > 1), in various fields, because they have been shown to be fake. And that’s about the only reason you won’t want to have your name on a paper.
I call this story bullshit.
@Pascal Pfiffner
Surely someone coming from the university of Bern can’t know this, but some people are very conservative where they put their name on it, because they have done quality work so far and don’t want to be associated with garbage. The same holds for shady conferences as well.
Ok I am actually the illegitimate love child of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Grown in a test tube and was loaned out to Page and Brin for orientation excercise on the consequences of unsafe sex.
My DNA is the basis for the orginal algorithms for Page Rank. And I will not be patented! BTW “Google” - just the sound I made as a baby.
No, I AM SPARTACUS!
I came here to post that and you beat me by about 15 minutes.
“Google was designed by Larry, Sergei and me in February 1997. Design includes a search algorithim, a business model called adsense and adwords, the name of the company…” I thought the business model and the whole contextual ads thing was thought up later.
would be nice to find out either want the Google response is or what the professor says.
seriously is this proves out to be false, this guy has just wrecked his career, especially since techcrunch is picked up by lots of random world media, this could get traction
I’m Google’s 10,567th founder! You better believe it, it is trueeeee!
Sorry Buddy,
Larry and Sergey took all of the risk, go find another job.
The Google results are derived mostly from using a technique that references “anchor text,” not the pagerank technique. Lycos has a patent on the anchor text concept - I don’t know why it’s never been enforced against Google.
Remember that documentary, the triumph of the nerds on PBS?… Remember who hosted it?
Yeah, the guy who didn’t thought Apple was going to be big… He is a very respected personality in the Silicon Valley, though not as rich as Jobs or the Woz…
Why now?, That’s all i ask. Why not earlier?