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.
How do you get put in charge of $1 billion?
There are a number of contradictory stories floating around, all true. I gave a talk at a TED salon, and somebody there invited me to give it at Google. The next thing I know, I get a call saying, We have this Google foundation, might you be interested? And then began the Google hiring dance. I got to meet all 6,500 employees one on one, for an hour each. [Laughs.] They must have run out of good candidates, so they picked me.
It seems like you were meant for this job.
My life only makes sense in retrospect. I was the mascot on the smallpox initiative. I was young and I could speak Hindi and I could type. I stayed there for over 10 years, and I rose to a big lofty title. But I learned epidemiology; I learned public health; I learned developing countries; I learned how to live through floods and catastrophes and famines. I’ve held hundreds of dead babies in my arms. I’ve learned how to think when the world is going to hell all around me.
What’s your mandate?
We’ll have three big areas: climate crisis, global public heath, and global poverty, not necessarily in that order. I’m going to approach this the way a venture capitalist would – map out the industry to see what the gaps are. You fund an initiative, learn what works, and ask, “Will it scale?”
What makes Google.org different from, say, the Gates foundation?
We are not really a foundation. It’s a bit of a 501(c)3, a bit of a C corp, and a bit of an academic environment. I can play more of the keys on the keyboard. A 501(c)3 can’t lobby. A 501(c)3 can’t invest in a company or build an industry. It may be that the only way to deal with climate change is to create an industry or build companies.
Where’s the money coming from?
One percent of the equity, 1 percent of the profits, and 1 percent of the people go into Google.org. The most important asset isn’t money, it’s people. One percent of the people means 60 or 70 of the smartest people in the world trying to solve some of the biggest problems in the world.
Are engineers really the best source for solutions to the world’s biggest problems?
I hope that you’ll put in that Wired questioned the value of engineers.
Touché.
Many of the issues we face in dealing with rapid climate change are well suited to an engineering mind.
Do you consider avian flu an information problem?
Absolutely. There’s a 10 to 15 percent chance that H5N1 will achieve escape velocity and mutate to be transmitted from human to human. If it does, between 100 million and 300 million people will die. The world will incur costs of $1 trillion to $3 trillion. But there’s an 85 to 90 percent chance of it not happening. How do you think this through with a government that is anti-science? How does one decide when experts don’t agree? Information is the key. Google can help make good information ubiquitous.
Do you expect some of your initiatives to fail?
God, I hope so. I am a technologist. If I have a 100 percent batting average, you should fire me, because it means we haven’t tried anything really noble.
How are you fitting in?
Google’s a strange place. When I met Eric Schmidt, he said, “If you are kind to everybody, then you will make good decisions because people will give you good information, and if you are truthful to everybody, they will be truthful to you.” That’s what’s different about Google. They screw up and make mistakes, but they genuinely mean the good stuff about “don’t be evil.”
It’s a catchy slogan, but you’re going further.
We are trying to change that to: Do something really, really, really good.
Contributing editor Evan Ratliff (eratliff@atavistic.org) wrote about
the disaster economy in issue 13.12. 
credit Ian White
Brilliant, here on the Google grounds, says engineers are ideal for solving the world’s problems.
