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; co-founded 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.
[Excerpt of an article by Evan Ratliff, Wired Magazine]
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