WIRED: Feeling Lucky

http://coolmel.gaia.com — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 22:10:45 GMT

via http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/brilliant.html

If Larry Brilliant’s life were a film, critics would pan the plot as implausible. Trained as a physician, he was studying in an Indian monastery in 1973 when a guru told him to join the UN smallpox vaccination effort. Brilliant helped eradicate the disease from India and eventually the planet. He returned to the US and founded a charity organization, Seva, that has saved millions of people in developing countries from blindness; cofounded the online community the Well; and served as CEO for four tech companies. Oh, and he also found time to march with Martin Luther King Jr. and moonlight as a physician for Jerry Garcia. Last October, Brilliant received a $100,000 TED Prize to further his idea for building a global early-warning system for disease and disaster. Four months later Google hired him to head its charitable arm, Google.org, with an initial bankroll of 3 million shares – worth about $1.15 billion – and 1 percent of annual profits. Brilliant recently suspended a self-imposed “quiet period” to talk about his plans for Google.org.

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WIRED: Feeling Lucky