Larry Brilliant, M.D., Former CEO of Google.org

Today, my guest is Larry Brilliant, a physician and epidemiologist, a member of the TED community, CEO of Pandefense Advisory and Chair of the Advisory Board of the NGO Ending Pandemics. He is a senior advisor to Jeff Skoll and serves on the board of the Skoll Foundation. Previously, he was president and CEO of the Skoll Global Threats Fund, vice president of Google and the founding executive director of Google.org. He also cofounded the Seva Foundation, an NGO whose programs have given sight back to more than five million blind people in two dozen countries. He also cofounded The Well, a progenitor of today’s social media platforms.

Earlier in his career, Brilliant was a professor of epidemiology and international health planning at the University of Michigan. Larry has engaged with some of the most prominent thought leaders, spiritual masters, heroes, and icons in the world, including Neem Karoli Baba (Maharajji), Martin Luther King, Jr., Steve Jobs, Mikhail Gorbachev, Wavy Gravy, the Grateful Dead, the Dalai Lama, and Barack Obama. His life’s journey across continents has resulted in the direct involvement of some of the most significant medical, spiritual, and social achievements of the past century: the eradication of smallpox in India, curing blindness in over 4 million people, introducing the teachings of the Maharajji to the Woodstock Generation and launching Google’s philanthropic enterprises.