WASHINGTON, August 29 (RIA Novosti) –Billionaire Russian-American Google co-founder Sergey Brin has split from his wife Anne Wojcicki, a technology news website reported, leading to some tricky situations at the businesses and organizations the couple are involved with.
Brin and Wojcicki, who are both 40 years old, have been married for six years and have two children. AllThingsD website quoted a spokesman for the pair who said “they have been living apart for several months. They remain good friends and partners.”
The couple signed a prenuptial agreement and the Google business empire would not be affected financially should they decide to divorce, AllThingsD said, citing unnamed sources with knowledge of the situation.
But the billionaire breakup brings other complications. AllThingsD cited sources saying Brin has become “romantically involved” with another Google employee.
That employee’s former partner, Hugo Barra, an executive for Google’s mobile operating system Android, announced in a blog post Wednesday that he was leaving the company to go to work for a firm in China.
Brin is also a direct investor in Wojcicki’s own genetic testing start-up “23andMe,” while the couple have donated to causes including Parkinson’s disease research, a poverty charity and the Wikimedia Foundation via their charitable organization, the Brin-Wojcicki Foundation,.
Brin and Wojcicki also have numerous real estate investments and are among the co-founders of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation, which awards $15 million per year to scientists working in the areas of curing intractable diseases and extending human life, according to the prize website.
Finally, Wojcicki’s sister, Susan, is senior vice president of advertising and commerce at Google, although she is not directly supervised by Brin, AllThingsD reported Wednesday.
A spokesman quoted in the report, picked up by numerous US media, said that Brin and Wojcicki would continue to collaborate on their many shared endeavors.
