Montessori Billionaires

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin not only receive a multi-billion dollar bounty for their ingenious discovery, Google.com, but have indirectly created the biggest impact on billions of people around the world in the present. As young preschoolers in a Montessori school, they learned to collect knowledge about the world. Now, at the touch of a button, thanks to these famous thought leaders, their creation on the Internet brings information about this very world directly to our desktops.

According to an interview with Barbara Walters’ ABC-TV special, “The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2004”, they credited their years as a Montessori student as the main factor behind their success. When asked if the fact that their parents were university professors was another factor, they replied: “No, it was going to a Montessori school where they learned to be autonomous and entrepreneurial.” They said that Montessori gave them the opportunity to think for themselves and gave them the freedom to pursue their own interests.” How remarkable that these prominently successful businessmen trace their independent thinking back to their formative preschool years.

As parents, we often think that this time in life isn’t as important as the college years, but guess what? The time has come otherwise. Mr. Page and Mr. Brin are excellent examples of creative thinking as they ask “Why not?” They even took their innovative thinking a step further when they took their company public. To be fair to ordinary people, they allowed them to offer shares in their company’s public offering. They didn’t limit the bidding to the big rich banks, but instead thought about people who were somehow entitled to benefit as much as Wall Street. Was this awareness installed in your thinking by the Montessori Cosmic Education by which we are all from one universe, honoring and respecting all humanity, the earth and everything on it? Did your Montessori beginnings allow you to be considerate of your co-workers as you were taught when you started Montessori school? Remember the contributing, not competitive, spirit that rings loud and clear in a Montessori classroom?

Yes, it wasn’t just about money, it was about making fair and honest decisions as they journeyed to success. Money always seems to follow successful innovations, but caring decisions are only made by notable business people. The exemplary entrepreneurial dynamics of Mr. Sergey and Mr. Brin, combined with their wildly creative attitudes, have created a great formula for their kind of success…the success they attribute to Montessori education. From preschool to the market, Montessori has made headlines. Nowhere else has any educational method been given as much honor and recognition as Montessori was given by the founders of Google.com.