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The man who calls himself the third co-founder of Google
Published on Sat, Sep 27, 2008 at 00:35 in Sci-Tech section
Tags: Google, Larry Page , Melbourne
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Melbourne: A man, who calls himself Hubert Chang, has released a web video published on Vimeo, in which he has claimed that he is one of the co-founders of Google.
However, his authenticity is being questioned as to why he waited 11 years to make his declaration.
In the video, Chang has claimed that he helped Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page design the search giant in February 1997.
"The design includes the search engine algorithm, the business model (also called AdSense and AdWords), the name of the company, the outline of the system architecture, a corporation culture like a grad school, and Google's growing path," Sydney Morning Herald quoted Chang, as saying.
Google has already released a statement claiming that Chang''s claims are completely baseless, but it did not deny that Page and Brin had met him.
Chang claims that he abandoned Google 11 years back because of his father's desire for him to complete his PhD at New York University.
Today, though, Google has a market capitalisation of 138 billion US dollars. And Page and Brin are worth 16 billion US dollars each, according to Forbes.
Chang says that Page and Brin asked him in September 1997 whether he would like to put his name on the academic paper that first described the Google search system, but he declined the offer so he could focus on his studies.
He said that the decision was difficult, uncomfortable and, in hindsight, unwise, but it "made sense" at the time.
Chang says that it was Stanford computer science professor Rajeev Motwani, who first introduced him to Brin and Page.
However, Motwani told InformationWeek that though he may have passed on a few emails but Chang's claims were "completely unfounded in reality".
"After viewing this tape, some people might think I'm lying, some might think I'm crazy, some might be upset, while others will consider I'm honest. But the tape has to be made," said Chang.
Chang has also claimed that he did try to contact Page and Brin after finishing his PhD in 2002 but they ignored him. Chang claims that it may be because they were either busy, did not know how to position him or did not want to "fully acknowledge the past".
In the video he does not explain why he waited 11 years to come forward and neither did he respond to a request for an interview.
On the other hand Google said that Page and Brin had "no recollection" of meeting Chang, "however, given the number of people they've met in the last decade it's impossible to say categorically that they never have".
Google said: "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 was a working prototype."
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