Why this Google X founder gave up 97 percent of his salary to try to change the world

by Dramelin 1:00 AM 0 comments

I could be running possibly the coolest lab on the planet… and here I am, giving up 97 percent of my salary.
Thrun left Google X because his vision for humanity was even bigger than what he felt he could do there.
Sebastian Thrun spent part of his teenage years lying in bed in his home town of Solingen, Germany programming a TI-57 calculator, a device produced by Texas Instruments in 1977 that had around 50 programming steps that were erased each time it was switched off.
Every day he had a new challenge.
“At the time it was intriguing that there was something around me in my, my world, when I told it to do something, it actually did it, right?” he told CNBC in an interview for the new series “The Brave Ones”.
“Because everyone else around me, my parents, my siblings, and so on, I would say: ‘Do this,’ and they would never do it.
” Beyond allaying his adolescent frustration, the TI-57 also set Thrun on a path where his programming skills would let him do the kinds of things boys and girls dream about: designing robots, winning science competitions and appearing on television.
But, after gaining a PhD in computer science and statistics from the University of Bonn in Germany, becoming a tenured professor at Stanford, numerous academic awards and accolades in the media, and his trailblazing stint at Google X, his ambitions would eventually become more worldly and altruistic: He wanted everyone to have the chance to learn the skills he had, wherever they were.